soul definition

English soul definition

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 uncertain ultimate origin (see there for further information).

Cognate with Scots saul, sowel (“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.

Alternative forms

• sowl (archaic)

Pronunciation

• enPR: sōl
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /səʊl/, [sɒʊɫ]
  • (New Zealand, General Australian) IPA^(key): /sɐʉl/, [sɒʊɫ]
  • (General American) IPA^(key): /soʊl/

  • Audio (GA)

    (file)

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

Noun

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.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., OCLC 222716698, page 46:

     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, 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[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 4293071:

     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.

   • 1928, Roosevelt, Franklin D., The Happy Warrior Alfred E. Smith‎^[1], Houghton Mifflin, OCLC 769015, OL 6719278M, pages 36-37:

     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.

3. Life, energy, vigor.
   • 1725, [Edward Young], “Satire III. To the Right Honourable Mr. Dodington.”, in Love of Fame, the Universal Passion. In Seven Characteristical Satires, 4th edition, London: […] J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson […], published 1741, OCLC 221368894, page 52:

     That he vvants 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.
   • 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.

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.

Quotations

For quotations using this term, see Citations:soul.

Synonyms

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

Derived terms

Pages starting with “soul”.

Related terms

• mind
• spirit

Descendants

Translations

Verb

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

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

   Synonyms: besoul, ensoul

2. To beg on All Soul's Day.

   Coordinate term: trick-or-treat

   • 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.

Derived terms

• besoul
• dark night of the soul

Etymology 2

Borrowed from French souler (“to satiate”).

Verb

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

1. (obsolete) To afford suitable sustenance.
   • 1741, unknown [formerly attributed to Daniel Defoe], The Life and Adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies, the British Amazon, commonly called Mother Ross: […], 2nd edition, London: Printed for R[ichard] Montagu, OCLC 221024157, part II, page 76:

     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, [...]

References

• soul at OneLook Dictionary Search
• soul in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• soul in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911

Anagrams

• Luso-, luso-

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Czech soul definition

Noun

soul m

1. soul (music style)

Further reading

• soul in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu

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Finnish soul definition

Etymology

Borrowed from English soul.

Noun

soul

1. soul music

Declension

Inflection of soul (Kotus type 5/risti, no gradation)
nominative		soul	—
genitive		soulin	—
partitive		soulia	—
illative		souliin	—
		singular	plural
nominative		soul	—
accusative	nom.	soul	—
	gen.	soulin
genitive		soulin	—
partitive		soulia	—
inessive		soulissa	—
elative		soulista	—
illative		souliin	—
adessive		soulilla	—
ablative		soulilta	—
allative		soulille	—
essive		soulina	—
translative		souliksi	—
instructive		—	—
abessive		soulitta	—
comitative		—	—

Possessive forms of soul (type risti)
possessor	singular	plural
1st person	soulini	soulimme
2nd person	soulisi	soulinne
3rd person	soulinsa

Anagrams

• Sulo, solu, sulo, ulos

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French soul definition

Etymology 1

See saoul.

Pronunciation

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

Adjective

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

1. post-1990 spelling of soûl, itself an alternative form of saoul (“drunk”)

Derived terms

• souler

Etymology 2

Borrowed from English soul.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sol/, /sul/

Noun

soul f (uncountable)

1. soul, soul music

Further reading

• “soul”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

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Hungarian soul definition

Etymology

Borrowed from English soul.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈsoːl] (phonetic respelling: szól)
• Hyphenation: soul
• Homophone: szól
• Rhymes: -oːl

Noun

soul (plural soulok)

1. (music) soul music

Declension

Inflection (stem in -o-, back harmony)
	singular	plural
nominative	soul	soulok
accusative	soult	soulokat
dative	soulnak	souloknak
instrumental	soullal	soulokkal
causal-final	soulért	soulokért
translative	soullá	soulokká
terminative	soulig	soulokig
essive-formal	soulként	soulokként
essive-modal	—	—
inessive	soulban	soulokban
superessive	soulon	soulokon
adessive	soulnál	souloknál
illative	soulba	soulokba
sublative	soulra	soulokra
allative	soulhoz	soulokhoz
elative	soulból	soulokból
delative	soulról	soulokról
ablative	soultól	souloktól
non-attributive possessive - singular	soulé	souloké
non-attributive possessive - plural	souléi	soulokéi

Possessive forms of soul
possessor	single possession	multiple possessions
1st person sing.	soulom	souljaim
2nd person sing.	soulod	souljaid
3rd person sing.	soulja	souljai
1st person plural	soulunk	souljaink
2nd person plural	soulotok	souljaitok
3rd person plural	souljuk	souljaik

Derived terms

• soulzene

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Italian soul definition

Etymology

Borrowed from English soul.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsol/, (careful style) /ˈsowl/^[1]
• Rhymes: -ol, (careful style) -owl
• Hyphenation: (careful style) sóul

Noun

soul m or f (invariable)

1. soul music

References

Anagrams

• suol

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Middle English soul definition

Noun

soul

1. Alternative form of soule

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Old French soul definition

Adjective

soul m (oblique and nominative feminine singular soule)

1. Alternative form of sol

Declension

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Polish soul definition

Etymology

Borrowed from English soul.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sɔwl/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔwl
• Syllabification: soul

Noun

soul m inan

1. soul music

Declension

Further reading

• soul in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• soul in Polish dictionaries at PWN

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Portuguese soul definition

Etymology

Borrowed from English soul.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /sow/
  • Homophone: sou (when pronounced with the /w/)

Noun

soul m (uncountable)

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

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Romanian soul definition

Etymology

From English soul.

Adjective

soul m or f or n (indeclinable)

1. soul (music)

Declension

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Spanish soul definition

Etymology

Borrowed from English soul.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsoul/, [ˈsou̯l]

Noun

soul m (uncountable)

1. soul, soul music

Further reading

• “soul”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014