hungry ghost and preta

[Benjamin Barrett]

I don't see this term in the AHD or on the Oxford Dictionary site, but Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost) and Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hungry_ghost) both have entries with this as a translation of 餓鬼 (èguǐ in Mandarin, gaki in Japanese, 아귀/agwi in Korean).

The earliest relevant hit I see is 1893 (http://bit.ly/UypLsz) in "Outlines of the Mahâyâna as Taught by Buddha" by Shintō Kuroda, and more hits start appearing in Google hits at the beginning of the twentieth century. At about 1961, the word takes off according to Google's Ngram Viewer (http://bit.ly/1uBoKjS), peaking in 1995 at 0.0000025916%.

An earlier, unrelated hit occurs in "The Origins and History of Missions..." by Rev. Thomas Smith (http://bit.ly/1mWqnie).

The earliest hit I see for preta (also in Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preta)/Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hungry_ghost) but not Oxford/AHD), which is perhaps the calque-source of 餓鬼, is 1888 in "Handbook of Chinese Buddhism Being Sanskrit-Chinese Dictionary" by Ernest J. Eitel (http://bit.ly/1nUhISa).

Benjamin Barrett
Formerly of Seattle, WA

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