wisp

Etymology

From Middle English wispe, wyspe, wips, wipse, perhaps from an unrecorded Old English *wisp, *wips. Cognate with West Frisian wisp, Dutch wisp (“bundle of hay or straw”), Norwegian bokmål/Swedish/Bornholm Danish visp (“handful or bundle of grass, hay, etc.”). Akin also to Middle Dutch/Middle Low German wispel (“measure of grain”).

noun

1. A small bundle, as of straw or other like substance; any slender, flexible structure or group.
   A wisp of smoke rose from the candle for a few moments after he blew it out.
   A wisp of hair escaped her barrette and whipped wildly in the wind.
2. A whisk, or small broom.
3. A will o' the wisp, or ignis fatuus.
4. An immeasurable, indefinable essence of life; soul.
   Another traditional answer to the question of what makes us so different, popular for millennia, has been that humans have a non-physical soul, one that inhabits the body but is distinct from it, an ethereal ghostly wisp that floats free at death to enjoy an after-life which may include reunion with other souls, or perhaps a new body to inhabit. September 10, 2017, Nigel Warburton, “What does a portrait of Erica the android tell us about being human?”, in The Observer
5. (archaic) A flock of snipe.
   They shift their quarters in the early part of the season very suddenly, and if a man hears of a wisp of snipe in any particular place, he must be off at once. 1861, Horace William Wheelwright, Bush Wanderings of a Naturalist, page 99
   A flock of snipe is given the collective name of a "wisp", perhaps due to its rapid twisting and turning before the birds drop down again. 1988, Michael Cady, Rob Hume, editors, The Complete Book of British Birds, page 158
6. (uncountable) A disease affecting the feet of cattle.

verb

1. (transitive) To brush or dress, as with a wisp.
   The very same head of hair, wisp'd, and matted together, would make the most disagreeable figure. 1753, William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty
2. (UK, dialect, obsolete) To rumple.
3. (intransitive) To produce a wisp, as of smoke.
   To Temple, sitting in the cottonseed-hulls and the corn-cobs, the sound was no louder than the striking of a match: a short, minor sound shutting down the scene, the instant, with a profound finality, completely isolating it, and she sat there, her legs straight before her, her hands limp and palm-up on her lap, looking at Popeye's tight back and the ridges of his coat across his shoulders as he leaned out the door, the pistol behind him, against his flank, wisping thinly along his leg. 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Library of America, published 1985, page 70
4. (transitive) To emit in wisps.
   It looked warm and rosy-bright inside, with a little chimney wisping smoke, little windows glowing. 2011, Iain Lawrence, The Winter Pony, page 219