soul

UK/səʊl//soʊl/

soul 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.

Noun

soul (countable and uncountable, plural souls)

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.
- "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...1836, Hans Christian Andersen (translated into English by Mrs. H. B. Paull in 1872), The Little Mermaid
- 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.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, page 46
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.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
- 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...1928, Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Happy Warrior Alfred E. Smith, Houghton Mifflin, →OCLC, →OL, pages 36–37
Synonyms:

crux
Life, energy, vigor.
- That he vvants Algebra he muſt confeſs. / But not a ſoul to give our arms ſucceſs.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]...
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.
- Ordo Malleus Inquisitor: I hereby sign the death warrant of an entire world, and consign a million souls to oblivion.2011, Relic Entertainment, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Retribution, scene: Exterminatus declared on Typhon Primaris
An individual life.
- Fifty souls were lost when the ship sank.
A kind of submanifold involved in the soul theorem of Riemannian geometry.

Adjective

soul (not comparable)

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

Verb (1)

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

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

Synonyms:

besoul, ensoul
To beg on All Soul's Day.
- 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.1981, Geoffrey Scard, Squire and tenant: life in rural Cheshire, 1760-1900, page 93

Verb (2)

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

(obsolete) 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, [...]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]...

soul meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

soul in Hindi

the spirit or essence of a person that is often believed to live on after the person's death: आत्मा ātmā, रूह rūh, नफ़्स nafs, नफ्स naphs
person, especially as one among many: जीवन jīvan, जान jān

soul in Tamil

the spirit or essence of a person that is often believed to live on after the person's death: ஆன்மா āṉmā

soul in Marathi

the spirit or essence of a person that is often believed to live on after the person's death: आत्मा ātmā

soul in Urdu

the spirit or essence of a person that is often believed to live on after the person's death: رُوح rūh, آتْما ātmā, نَفْس nafs

More languagesFewer languages

soul in Bengali: আত্মা atta, রূহ ruho, জান jan
soul in Telugu: ఆత్మ ātma, నూటికి ఒక్కడు nūṭiki okkaḍu
soul in Malayalam: ആത്മാവ് ātmāvŭ
soul in Kannada: ಆತ್ಮ ātma
soul in Punjabi: روح rūḥ, آتما ātmā, ਜੋਤ jot, دل dil
soul in Gujarati: આત્મા ātmā
soul in Odia: ଆତ୍ମା ātmā
soul in Sanskrit: आत्मन् ātmán, त्मन् tmán, विज्ञान vijñāna, प्राणी prāṇī
soul in Sinhala: ආත්මය ātmaya
soul in Assamese: আত্মা atma, জীউ ziu, মন mon
soul in Nepali: आत्मा ātmā
soul in Pashto: روح roh, نفس nafs
soul in Tagalog: kalag, kaluluwa, diwa
soul in Arabic: رُوح rūḥ, نَفْس nafs, روح rūḥ, نفس nafs
soul in Malay: roh, jiwa, nyawa, semangat
soul in Indonesian: ruh, nyawa, insan, jiwa
soul in Persian: روح ruh, رَوان ravân, جان jân, نَفْس nafs
soul in Thai: วิญญาณ win-yaan
soul in Vietnamese: linh hồn
soul in Myanmar: ဝိညာဉ် wi.nyany
Sindhi: رُوحُ rūḥu, रूहु

Examples of soul in a sentence

That is your SOUL, the very culmination of your being!2015 September 15, Toby Fox, Undertale, Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X:
"There's a vibrancy that comes from the building's historic soul metting the rhythm of the Caribbean," says Monnier.2026 May, Julie Coe, quoting Annie Monnier, “The Rest is History”, in Architectural Digest, volume 83, number 4, page 36:

All 40 example sentences with soul

Synonyms of soul

Forms of soul

Noun
plural	souls
alternative form (archaic)	sowl
alternative form (obsolete)	soule
Verb
third-person singular present	souls
present participle	souling
past participle	souled
past	souled

Plural of soul: souls

Origin of soul

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.

Borrowed from French souler (“to satiate”).

Words formed from soul

Phrases with soul

52 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with soul

47 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about soul

What does soul mean?: Soul means 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.
What is soul in Hindi?: Soul in Hindi is आत्मा (ātmā), रूह (rūh), नफ़्स (nafs). See Soul meaning in Hindi.
How do you use soul in a sentence?: That is your SOUL, the very culmination of your being!
What part of speech is soul?: Soul can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce soul?: Soul is pronounced /səʊl/ (UK).
What is the plural of soul?: The plural of soul is souls.

Words near soul in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: soul (page history and authors); آتما (Punjabi) (page history and authors); আত্মা (Assamese) (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: 2026-09-02

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

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