Word.ws English Dictionary

sole

UK/səʊl//soʊl/

sole adjective: only.

sole: only
Image: Kayau, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

sole (not comparable)

  1. Only.
    • He saw now clearly that the sole crew of the vessel was these two dead men, and though he could not see their faces, he saw by their outstretched hands, which were all of ragged flesh, that they had been subjected to some strange exceptional process of decay.1905, H. G. Wells, The Empire of the Ants
  2. Unmarried (especially of a woman); widowed.
    Synonyms:
    lone
  3. Unique; unsurpassed.
    • The sole brilliance of this gem.
  4. With independent power; unfettered.
    • A sole authority.

Noun (1)

sole (plural soles)

  1. The bottom or plantar surface of the foot.
    Synonyms:
    planta
  2. (footwear) The bottom of a shoe or boot.
    • The Caliga was a military Shoe, with a very thick Sole, tied above the instep with leather Thongs.1727, John Arbuthnot, Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights and Measures. Explain'd and exemplify'd in several dissertations, page 147
  3. (obsolete) The foot itself.
    • Hast wandred through the world now long a day;Yet ceasest not thy wearie soles to lead1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 9
    • But the doue found no rest for the sole of her foote, and she returned vnto him into the Arke: […]1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 8:9
  4. Solea solea, a flatfish of the family Soleidae; a true sole.
    • The fishermen crowding in the cafés were also waiting for the end of the storm, when the fish, reassured, would rise to the surface after the bait. Soles, hog fish and skate were returning from their nocturnal expeditions. Day was now breaking.1952, Nikos Kazantzakis, chapter 1, in Carl Wildman, transl., Zorba the Greek, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, translation of Βίος και πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά [Víos kai politeía tou Aléxi...
  5. (broadly) A flatfish resembling those of the family Soleidae.
  6. The bottom of the body of a plough; the slade.
  7. The bottom of a furrow.
  8. The end section of the chanter of a set of bagpipes.
  9. The horny substance under a horse's foot, which protects the more tender parts.
  10. The bottom of an embrasure.
  11. A piece of timber attached to the lower part of the rudder, to make it even with the false keel.
    • The rudder remains to be repaired, and is unshipped for the purpose; the sole of it is entirely gone1842, The Nautical Magazine
  12. The floor inside the cabin of a yacht or boat
  13. The seat or bottom of a mine; applied to horizontal veins or lodes.

Verb (1)

sole (third-person singular simple present soles, present participle soling, simple past and past participle soled)

  1. (transitive) To put a sole on a shoe or a boot.

Noun (2)

sole (plural soles)

  1. (dialectal, obsolete) A wooden band or yoke put around the neck of an ox or cow in the stall.

Noun (3)

sole (plural soles)

  1. (Northern England, dialectal) A pond or pool; a dirty pond of standing water.

Verb (2)

sole (third-person singular simple present soles, present participle soling, simple past and past participle soled)

  1. (UK, dialectal, transitive) To pull by the ears; to pull about; haul; lug.

Proper noun capitalized: Sole

Sole

  1. A sea area, corresponding to the Sole Bank, to the north of FitzRoy

sole meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

sole in Hindi

only
एकलौता eklautā, एकलौती eklautī
unmarried; widowed
एकल ekal
bottom of the foot
तलवा talvā
bottom of a shoe or boot
नाल nāl

sole in Tamil

bottom of the foot
உள்ளங்கால் uḷḷaṅkāl, உள்ளடி uḷḷaṭi
fish
நாக்குமீன் nākkumīṉ

sole in Urdu

sole
کیول keval
sole; only
اکلوتا iklautā
sole, only, solitary
اکا ikkā

sole in Bengali

জুতার তলি, পদতল, পাদতল, চরণতল, পাদমূল, একমাত্র
More languagesFewer languages
sole in Telugu
ఏకము ēkamu
sole in Malayalam
ഉള്ളംകാൽ uḷḷaṅkāl, നങ്ക് naṅkŭ
sole in Kannada
ಕಾಲ್ಮಡಿ, ಅಂಗಾಲ್, ಅಂಗಾಲು, ಕೆಳವಡಿ
sole in Punjabi
ਤਲ਼ੀ taḷī
sole in Gujarati
એક ek
sole in Odia
ଛୁଛା chuchā
sole in Sanskrit
केवल kévala, अनन्य ananyá
sole in Nepali
एउटै euṭai, एकल ekal, पैताला paitālā
sole in Tagalog
tangi, talampakan
sole in Arabic
وَحِيد waḥīd, عَزْب ʕazb, أَخْمُص ʔaḵmuṣ, بَاطِن القَدَم bāṭin al-qadam
sole in Malay
tapak kaki
sole in Indonesian
sol
sole in Thai
ฝ่า fàa
sole in Vietnamese
bàn chân
sole in Myanmar
ခြေဖဝါး hkrehpa.wa:, ဖဝါး hpa.wa:

Examples of sole in a sentence

  • List all books of which you were the sole or co-author.
  • The microscope showed several different fibres stuck to the sole of the shoe.
  • The microscope showed a single blue fiber stuck to the sole of the shoe.

All 40 example sentences with sole

Synonyms of sole

1 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of sole

Forms of sole

Noun
pluralsoles
alternative formsoal
Verb
third-person singular presentsoles
present participlesoling
past participlesoled
pastsoled
alternative formsowl

Plural of sole: soles

Origin of sole

From Middle English sole, soule, from Old French sol, soul (“alone”), from Latin sōlus (“alone, single, solitary, lonely”). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *swé (reflexive pronoun). Perhaps related to Old Latin sollus (“whole, complete”), from Proto-Indo-European *solh₂- (“safe, healthy”). More at save.

From Middle English sole, soole, from Old English sole, solu. Reinforced by Anglo-Norman sole, Old French sole, from Vulgar Latin *sola (“bottom of the shoe”, also “flatfish”), from Latin solea (“sandal, bottom of the shoe”), from Proto-Indo-European *swol- (“sole”). Cognate with Dutch zool (“sole, tread”), German Sohle (“sole, insole, bottom, floor”), Danish sål (“sole”), Icelandic sóli (“sole, outsole”), Gothic 𐍃𐌿𐌻𐌾𐌰 (sulja, “sandal”). Related to Latin solum (“bottom, ground, soil”). More at soil. Compare typologically Russian по́чва (póčva) akin to подо́шва (podóšva).

From Middle English sole, soole, from Old English sāl (“a rope, cord, line, bond, rein, door-hinge, necklace, collar”), from Proto-Germanic *sailą, *sailaz (“rope, cable”), *sailō (“noose, rein, bondage”), from Proto-Indo-European *sey- (“to tie to, tie together”). Cognate with Scots sale, saile (“halter, collar”), Dutch zeel (“rope, cord, strap”), German Seil (“rope, cable, wire”), Icelandic seil (“a string, line”). Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian dell (“sinew, vein”).

Words formed from sole

Phrases with sole

5 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with sole

47 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sole

What does sole mean?
Sole means only.
What is sole in Hindi?
Sole in Hindi is एकलौता (eklautā), एकलौती (eklautī), एकल (ekal). See Sole meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is sole?
Sole can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce sole?
Sole is pronounced /səʊl/ (UK).

Words near sole in the dictionary

  1. soldiuh
  2. soldo
  3. soldos
  4. Soldotna
  5. soldout
  6. sole
  7. sole chamber
  8. sole chambers
  9. sole corporation
  10. sole corporations
  11. sole custody

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sole (page history and authors); Sole (page history and authors); اکا (Urdu) (page history and authors); sole (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ఏకము (Telugu) (page history and authors); sole (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਤਲ਼ੀ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); એક (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ଛୁଛା (Odia) (page history and authors); अनन्य (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-sole.ogg.

Cite this entry: “sole.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sole. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.