There are not a few very much to be pitied, whose industry being not attended with natural parts, they have sweat to little purpose, and rolled the stone in vain, which chiefly proceedeth from natural incapacity and genial indisposition, at least to those particulars whereunto they apply their endeavours.—Sir T. Browne, Vulgar Errors, b. i. c. 5.
Gestation. Now a technical word applied only to the period during which the females of animals carry their young; but acknowledging no such limitation once.
Gestation in a chariot or wagon hath in it a shaking of the body, but some vehement, and some more soft.—Sir T. Elyot, Castle of Health, b. ii. c. 34.
Gestation, an exercise of the body, by being carried in coach, litter, upon horseback, or in a vessel on the water.—Holland, Pliny, Explanation of the Words of Art.
Ghost. It is only in the very highest acceptation of all that ‘Ghost’ and ‘Spirit’ are now synonymous and exchangeable. They once were so through the entire range of their several uses.
And in this manere was man made,
And thus God gaf hym a goost.
Piers Plowman, B-text, Passus ix. 45 (Skeat).
As wel in body as goost, chaste was sche.
Chaucer, The Doctoures Tale (Morris, iii. p. 77).