soul

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the human embodiment of something

   the soul of honor

2. 2
   noun

   a secular form of gospel that was a major Black musical genre in the 1960s and 1970s

   soul was politically significant during the Civil Rights movement

3. 3
   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.

4. 4
   noun

   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.

5. 5
   noun

   Life, energy, vigor.

   That he vvants Algebra he muſt confeſs. / But not a ſoul to give our arms ſucceſs.

6. 6
   noun

   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.

7. 7
   noun

   An individual life.

   Fifty souls were lost when the ship sank.

8. 8
   adj

   Characteristic of or pertaining to African American culture.

   soul music

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,…