akh

plural akhs

1. In Egyptian mythology, (roughly) a spirit of the dead that has successfully completed its transition to the afterlife.

   The akh would later become the state achieved when the ba and ka are rejoined.

   2005, Gary A. Stillwell, Afterlife: Post-Mortem Judgments in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece, page 118

   4 more examples

   Their abode is heaven; and the Akh, by contrast with the Ba, does not retain any relation to the body.… It is a deceased, a transcendent being, without earthly or material ties; and, as such, it is the most spiritualized of the various concepts of the dead.

   1948, Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature, page 64

   After spending the night asleep in their tombs, the akhs would wake each morning at sunrise and “come forth from the necropolis” to enjoy an ideal life, free from the cares of physical existence.

   2000, James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, page 33

   If a person’s ka and ba were not reunited and akh failed to develop, then everlasting life would not occur.

   2009, Janet Balk, “Egyptian Perceptions of Death in Antiquity”, in Clifton D. Bryant, Dennis L. Peck, editors, Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience, page 399

   Different postmortem aspects of the individual are mentioned in ritual texts, so that it is unclear how they relate to one another: the ka (what leaves the body when death occurs), the ba (the personality of the individual), and the akh (a glorified bodily form).

   2015, “Afterlife”, in Eric Orlin, editor, Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions, page 17

plural akhs · alternative akhi

1. Multicultural London EnglishslangIslamBrother; a close male friend or associate.