Spirituality – what is it?

Philip Barron explores a mysterious word

by Philip Barron 19th October 2012

Spirituality has become something of a vogue word these days, but what does it mean? My Oxford dictionary only lists the word as a derivative of ‘spirit’, which comes from the Latin spiritus meaning ‘wind’ or ‘breath’. This term is defined differently by monotheists, polytheists, Native Americans, secularists and so on.