soul

From Middle English soule, sowle, saule, sawle, from Old English sāwol (“soul, life, spirit, being”), from Proto-Germanic *saiwalō (“soul”). Cognate with Scots saul, soul (“soul”), North Frisian siel, sial (“soul”), Saterland Frisian Seele (“soul”), West Frisian siel (“soul”), Dutch ziel (“soul”), German Seele (“soul”) Scandinavian homonyms seem to have been borrowed from Old Saxon *siala. Modern Danish sjæl, Swedish själ, Norwegian sjel. Icelandic sál may have come from Old English sāwol.

• sowl (archaic)

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: sōl, IPA^(key): /səʊl/
• (General American) enPR: sōl, IPA^(key): /soʊl/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊl
• Homophones: Seoul, sole, sowl

soul (countable and uncountable, plural souls)

1. (religion, folklore) The spirit or essence of a person usually thought to consist of one's thoughts and personality. Often believed to live on after the person's death.
   • 1836, Hans Christian Andersen (translated into English by Mrs. H. B. Paull in 1872), The Little Mermaid

     "Among the daughters of the air," answered one of them. "A mermaid has not an immortal soul, nor can she obtain one unless she wins the love of a human being. On the power of another hangs her eternal destiny. But the daughters of the air, although they do not possess an immortal soul, can, by their good deeds, procure one for themselves.

   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 4, in The Celebrity:

     No matter how early I came down, I would find him on the veranda, smoking cigarettes, or […] . And at last I began to realize in my harassed soul that all elusion was futile, and to take such holidays as I could get, when he was off with a girl, in a spirit of thankfulness.

   • 2015 September 15, Toby Fox, Undertale (video game), Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X:

     Flowey: See that heart? That is your SOUL, the very culmination of your being!

2. The spirit or essence of anything.
   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 22, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied.

3. Life, energy, vigor.
   • Young

     That he wants algebra he must confess; / But not a soul to give our arms success.

4. (music) Soul music.
5. A person, especially as one among many.
   • D. H. Lawrence

     I want to gather together about twenty souls and sail away from this world of war and squalor and found a little colony where there shall be no money but a sort of communism as far as necessaries of life go, and some real decency.

6. An individual life.

   Fifty souls were lost when the ship sank.

7. (mathematics) A kind of submanifold involved in the soul theorem of Riemannian geometry.

• For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:soul.

• (spirit or essence of anything): crux, gist; See also Thesaurus:gist
• (a person): See also Thesaurus:person

Pages starting with "soul".

• mind
• spirit

soul (third-person singular simple present souls, present participle souling, simple past and past participle souled)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To endow with a soul; to furnish with a soul or mind.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Chaucer to this entry?)

2. To beg on All Soul's Day.
   • 1981, Geoffrey Scard, Squire and tenant: life in rural Cheshire, 1760-1900, page 93:

     All Souls' Day was celebrated by souling, a custom going back to pre-Reformation days: soul cakers and mummers toured the village begging for a soul cake — a plain, round, flat cake seasoned with spices.

• besoul

Borrowed from French souler (“to satiate”).

soul (third-person singular simple present souls, present participle souling, simple past and past participle souled)

1. (obsolete) To afford suitable sustenance.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Warner to this entry?)

• Luso-, luso-

soul m

1. soul (music style)

• soul in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu

Borrowed from English soul.

soul

1. soul music

• Sulo, solu, sulo, ulos

• soûl, saoul

From Latin satullus, diminutive of satur.

• IPA^(key): /su/
• Homophones: sou, sous

soul (feminine singular soule, masculine plural souls, feminine plural soules)

1. drunk

• ivre

• souler

Borrowed from English soul.

• IPA^(key): /sol/

soul f (uncountable)

1. soul, soul music

• “soul” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Borrowed from English soul.

• IPA^(key): [ˈsoːl]
• Hyphenation: soul

soul (plural soulok)

1. (music) soul music

• soulzene

Borrowed from English soul.

soul m or f (invariable)

1. soul music

soul m (oblique and nominative feminine singular soule)

1. Alternative form of sol

Borrowed from English soul.

• IPA^(key): /sɔwl/

soul m inan

1. soul, soul music.

Borrowed from English soul.

soul m (uncountable)

1. soul music (a music genre combining gospel music, rhythm and blues and often jazz)

Borrowed from English soul.

soul m (uncountable)

1. soul, soul music