soul

plural souls · alternative archaic sowl · alternative obsolete soule

1. countableuncountableartsThe 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.

   Flowey: See that heart? That is your SOUL, the very culmination of your being!

   2015 September 15, Toby Fox, Undertale, Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X

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   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.

   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

2. countableuncountableThe spirit or essence of anything.

   "There's a vibrancy that comes from the building's historic soul metting the rhythm of the Caribbean," says Monnier.

   2026 May 28, Julie Coe, quoting Annie Monnier, “The Rest is History”, in Architectural Digest, volume 83, number 4, page 36

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   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 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.

   1928, Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Happy Warrior Alfred E. Smith, Houghton Mifflin, →OCLC, →OL, pages 36–37

   Synonyms: crux

3. countableuncountableLife, 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] Tonson […], published 1741, →OCLC, page 52

4. countableuncountableCultural consciousness and pride among people of African American heritage.
5. countableuncountableA strong positive feeling of intense sensitivity and emotional fervor conveyed especially by African American performers.
6. countableuncountableentertainmentSoul music.
7. countableuncountableA 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.

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   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

8. countableuncountableAn individual life.

   Fifty souls were lost when the ship sank.

9. countableuncountablemathematicsA kind of submanifold involved in the soul theorem of Riemannian geometry.

alternative archaic sowl · alternative obsolete soule

1. not comparableCharacteristic of or pertaining to African American culture.

   soul food

   1 more example

   soul music

present singular third person souls · participle present souling · participle past souled · past souled · alternative archaic sowl · alternative obsolete soule

1. obsoletetransitiveTo endow with a soul or mind.

   Synonyms: besoul, ensoul

2. 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

present singular third person souls · participle present souling · participle past souled · past souled

1. obsoleteTo 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] Montagu, →OCLC, part II, page 76