soul

noun

essence of an individual

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /səʊl/ / [sɔʊɫ] / [sɒʊɫ]

adj

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.

Characteristic of or pertaining to African American culture.
“soul music”
“soul food”

noun

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.”
“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.”
The spirit or essence of anything.
“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.”
Life, energy, vigor.
“That he vvants Algebra he muſt confeſs. / But not a ſoul to give our arms ſucceſs.”
Cultural consciousness and pride among people of African American heritage.
A strong positive feeling of intense sensitivity and emotional fervor conveyed especially by African American performers.
Soul music.
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.”
An individual life.
“Fifty souls were lost when the ship sank.”
A kind of submanifold involved in the soul theorem of Riemannian geometry.

verb

Etymology: Borrowed from French souler (“to satiate”).

To feed or nourish.
“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, [...]”