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Soul

//səʊl// noun, verb

Definitions

Noun

1
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. countable, uncountable
"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."
2
a human being; person, singular, assertive existential pronoun; pronoun, person, singular; quantifier: assertive existential wordnet
3
The spirit or essence of anything. countable, uncountable
"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."
4
the human embodiment of something wordnet
5
Life, energy, vigor. countable, uncountable
"That he vvants Algebra he muſt confeſs. / But not a ſoul to give our arms ſucceſs."

Show 7 more definitions

6
a secular form of gospel that was a major Black musical genre in the 1960s and 1970s wordnet
7
Soul music. countable, uncountable
8
deep feeling or emotion wordnet
9
A person, especially as one among many. countable, uncountable
"18 January 1915, D. H. Lawrence, letter to William Hopkin 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."
10
the immaterial part of a person; the actuating cause of an individual life wordnet
11
An individual life. countable, uncountable
"Fifty souls were lost when the ship sank."
12
A kind of submanifold involved in the soul theorem of Riemannian geometry. countable, uncountable

Verb

1
To endow with a soul or mind. obsolete, transitive
2
To feed or nourish. obsolete
"During my Stay here, I was going to take Pot-Luck with Colonel Ingram, and accidentally meeting him in the Way, I told him I deſigned to ſoul a Plate with him, [...]"
3
To beg on All Soul's Day.
"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."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English soule, sowle, saule, sawle, from Old English sāwol (“soul, life, spirit, being”), from Proto-West Germanic *saiwalu, from Proto-Germanic *saiwalō (“soul”), of an uncertain ultimate origin (see there for further information). Cognates Cognate with Scots saul, sowel (“soul”), Saterland Frisian Seele (“soul”), West Frisian siel (“soul”), Alemannic German Seel (“soul”), Central Franconian Siel (“soul”), Dutch ziel (“soul”), German Seele (“soul”), German Low German Seel (“soul”), Luxembourgish Séil (“soul, spirit”), Vilamovian zejł, zəjł, zyił (“soul”), Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌹𐍅𐌰𐌻𐌰 (saiwala, “soul”). Scandinavian homonyms seem to have been borrowed from Old Saxon sēola. Modern Danish sjæl (“soul”), Icelandic sál (“soul”), Norwegian Bokmål sjel (“soul”), Norwegian Nynorsk sjel, sål (“soul”), Swedish själ (“soul”), Finnish sielu (“soul”) may have come from Old English sāwol.

Etymology 2

Etymology 3

Borrowed from French souler (“to satiate”).

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