soul-search

plural soul-searches · alternative soulsearch · alternative soul search

1. countableAn act or instance of soul-searching.

   Thus she willingly journeys with me in my soul-search.

   2004, Linda Elaine Thomas, Living Stones in the Household of God, page 158

   2 more examples

   Do not do a large soul-search if it is the first time that you have attempted something like this, but find one or two simple things that will be easy to put right once identified.

   2011, Gail Duff, The Wheel Of The Wiccan Year, page 200

   After several years of reading Shiv Khera books and millions of minutes spent in meditative soul-searches, he had eventually found something that he believed he was good at and was able to execute without any trouble.

   2014, Sirpy, Smashed!

2. uncountableThe process of deep and critical self-examination.

   On my cheek I can still feel the child's kiss—a kiss that has triggered some soul-search inside me.

   1998, United Nations Population Fund, A Guidance Resource Manual on the Growing Filipino Adolescent

   2 more examples

   Moreover, just as the adherents of the new protest ideologies have been involved in a soul-search of their own identities and thus involved in struggles to make and to declare choices, so likewise the national society is engaged in soul-search and choice.

   1968, Curriculum Imperative: Survival of Self in Society

   This chapter defines the scope of the book by limiting it to the dialogue between the soul-search of Haizi and his generation through Haizi's poetry, and Jesus Christ predominantly in the Gospel of Luke.

   2018, Xiaoli Yang, A Dialogue between Haizi’s Poetry and the Gospel of Luke, page 6

present singular third person soul-searches · participle present soul-searching · participle past soul-searched · past soul-searched · alternative soulsearch · alternative soul search

1. To engage in deep and critical self-examination.

   The quiet times I steal back from you for myself has given me time to soul-search.

   2013, Sherika Moore, Just Listen, page 52

   2 more examples

   These are the times when you should take a deep breath and deeply soul-search your own actions to see whether you could have done anything at all that would have increased your tip.

   2006, Peter Stokes, How's Everything?

   Sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and experts in a great many fields are noting that what we are losing in the information age is the ability to soul-search.

   2011, Brian Luke Seaward, Managing Stress: A Creative Journal, page xi