The Japanese word refers to the spirit of a kami or the soul of a dead person.Iwanami Japanese dictionary, 6th Edition (2008), DVD version It is composed of two characters, the first of which, , is simply an honorific. The second, means "spirit". The character pair 神霊, also read mitama, is used exclusively to refer to a kami's spirit. Significantly, the term is a synonym of shintai, the object which in a Shinto shrine houses the enshrined kami.
