soul
Part of speech: noun
adj
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: arts
entertainment
folklore
history
human-sciences
lifestyle
literature
mathematics
media
music
publishing
religion
sciences
Etymology: 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.
Inflected forms:
form: souls
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: sowl
pos: noun
tags: alternative
archaic
form: soule
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: sowl
pos: adj
tags: alternative
archaic
form: soule
pos: adj
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: souls
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: souling
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: souled
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: souled
pos: verb
tags: past
form: sowl
pos: verb
tags: alternative
archaic
form: soule
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: 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.
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.
Flowey: See that heart? That is your SOUL, the very culmination of your being!
gloss: The spirit or essence of anything.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: 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.
It is possible with only these qualities for a man to be a reasonably efficient President, but there is one thing more needed to make him a great President. It is that quality of soul which makes a man loved by little children, by dumb animals, that quality of soul which makes him a strong help to all those in sorrow or in trouble, that quality which makes him not merely admired, but loved by all the people - the quality of sympathetic understanding of the human heart, of real interest in one's fellow men.
"There's a vibrancy that comes from the building's historic soul metting the rhythm of the Caribbean," says Monnier.
gloss: Life, energy, vigor.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: That he vvants Algebra he muſt confeſs. / But not a ſoul to give our arms ſucceſs.
gloss: Cultural consciousness and pride among people of African American heritage.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A strong positive feeling of intense sensitivity and emotional fervor conveyed especially by African American performers.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: Soul music.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A person, especially as one among many.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: 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.
gloss: An individual life.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Fifty souls were lost when the ship sank.
gloss: A kind of submanifold involved in the soul theorem of Riemannian geometry.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: Characteristic of or pertaining to African American culture.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: soul music
soul food
gloss: To endow with a soul or mind.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
gloss: To beg on All Soul's Day.
pos: verb
examples: 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.
Synonyms: gist
Related words: mind
spirit
Derived words: after one's own soul
album-oriented soul
All Souls' Day
animal soul
bare one's soul
bless my soul
blue-eyed soul
body and soul
brevity is the soul of wit
brown-eyed soul
cut away one's soul
cybersoul
dead soul
deep soul
desoul
ensoul
God rest her soul
God rest his soul
God rest their soul
heart and soul
hip hop soul
insoul
keep body and soul together
keep soul and body together
kindred soul
lay bare one's soul
life and soul of the party
Lord rest his soul
lost soul
may God have mercy on your soul
neo soul
neo-soul
northern soul
not a living soul
not a soul
object-soul
old soul
oversoul
pour one's soul out
pour out one's soul
psychedelic soul
rest his soul
rest one's soul
sell one's soul
sell one's soul to the devil
sell one's soul to the Devil
shiver my soul
soca
soulache
soul-ale
soul bell
soul blues
soul-blues
soulboy
soul brother
soul cake
soul-cake
soul conjecture
soulcraft
soul-crushing
soul-crushingly
soul-destroying
souled
soul food
soul fragment
soulful
soulfully
soulfulness
soulical
soulish
soul kiss
soul knell
soulless
soullike
soul link
soul loss
soul-love
soulmark
Soulmass
soulmate
soul mate
soul music
soul patch
soulrending
soul roll
Soulsborne
soulscape
soulscot
soul search
soul-search
soul-searcher
soul searching
soul-searching
soul-shaking
soulsick
soul sister
soul sleep
Soulslike
soulster
soul-stirring
soul-sucking
soul theorem
soul tie
soulular
soulward
soulwinner
soulwinning
sowkin
the eyes are the window to the soul
tripartite soul
unsoul
upon my soul
white soul
world-soul
world soul
world's soul
dark night of the soul
besoul
Translations: