Soul definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (40)

American Heritage Dictionary (10)

noun The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.
noun The spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death, and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.
noun The disembodied spirit of a dead human.

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Century Dictionary (20)

A substantial entity believed to be that in each person which lives, feels, thinks, and wills. Animals also, and even plants, have been thonght to have souls. Primitive peoples identify the soul with the breath, or something contained in the blood. Separated from the body, it is supposed to have some imperfect existence, and to retain the form of the body as a ghost. The verses of Davies (see below) enumerate most of the ancient Greek opinions. The first is that of Anaximander and of Diogenes of Apollonia; the second is that of Heraclitus; the third is that of Empedocles; the fourth is that attributed to Empedocles by Aristotle; the fifth is that of Dicæarchus and other Pythagoreans, as Simmias in the “Phædo”; the sixth is attributed wrongly to Galen; the seventh is that of Democritus and the atomists; the eighth is attributed by some authorities to the Pythagoreans; and the ninth is that of the Stoics. Aristotle makes the soul little more than a faculty or attribute of the body, and he compares it to the “axness” of an ax. The scholastics combined this idea with that of the separability and immortality of the soul, thus forming a highly metaphysical doctrine. Descartes originated distinct metaphysical dualism, which holds that spirit and matter are two radically different kinds of substance—the former characterized by consciousness, the latter by extension. Most modern philosophers hold to monism in some form, which recognizes only one kind of substance. That the soul is immortal is a very ancient and widely diffused opinion; it is also commonly believed that the soul has no parts. A soul separated from the body is commonly called a spirit, not a soul. In biblical and theological usage ‘sour’ (nephesh, psyche, also rendered ‘life’) is sometimes used for the non-corporeal nature of man in general, and sometimes, in distinction from spirit, for the lower part of this non-corporeal nature, standing in direct communication with the body, and regarded as the seat of the emotions, rarely of will or spirit. Some theologians minimize the distinction between soul and spirit, making them mere aspects or relations of the same substance, while others have made them distinct substances or distinct entities. For of the soule the bodie forme doth take; For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make. Spenser, Hymn in Honour of Beauty, l. 132. I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thes. v. 23. The word of God is … sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit. Heb. iv. 12. To hold opinion with Pythagoras That souls of animals infuse themselves Into the trunks of men. Shak., M. of V., iv. 1. 132. One thinks the soule is aire; another fire; Another blood, diffus'd about the heart; Another saith the elements conspire, And to her essence each doth give a part. Musicians thinke our soules are harmonies; Phisicians hold that they complexions be; Epicures make them swarmes of atomies, Which doe by chance into our bodies flee. Some think one generall soule fils every braine, As the bright sunne sheds light in every starre; And others thinke the name of soule is vaine, And that we onely well-mixt bodies are. Sir J. Davies, Nosce Teipsum. They [corporations] cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicate, for they have no souls. Case of Sutton's Hospital, 10 Coke's Rep., p. 32, b. Although the human soul is united to the whole body, it has, nevertheless, its principal seat in the brain, where alone it not only understands and imagines, but also perceives. Descartes, Prin. of Philos. (tr. by Veitch), iv. § 180. Our idea of soul, as an immaterial spirit, is of a substance that thinks and has a power of exciting motion in body by writing or thought. Locke, Human Understanding, II. xxiii. § 22. With chemic art exalts the mineral powers, And draws the aromatic souls of flowers. Pope, Windsor Forest, l. 244. It seems probable that the soul will remain in a state of inactivity, though perhaps not of insensibility, from death to the resurrection. Hartley, Observations on Man, II. iv. § 3, prop. 90.
The moral and emotional part of man's nature; the seat of the sentiments or feelings: in distinction from intellect. Hear my soul speak: The very instant that I saw you, did My heart fly to your service. Shak., Tempest, iii. 1. 63. These vain joys, in which their wills consume Such powers of wit and soul as are of force To raise their beings to eternity. B. Jonson, Cynthia's Revels, v. 2. In my soul I loathe All affectation. Cowper, Task, ii. 416.
The animating or essential part; the essence: as, the soul of a song; the source of action; the chief part; hence, the inspirer or leader of any action or movement: as, the soul of an enterprise; an able commander is the soul of an army. Brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes. Shak., Hamlet, ii. 2. 90. He had put domestic factions under his feet; he was the soul of a mighty coalition. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vii.

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But what conceit can be imagined more base, than that man should strive to persuade himself even against the secret instinct, no doubt, of his own mind, that his soul is as the soul of a beast, mortal, and corruptible with the body? — Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, etc., Volume Two
It's a smell of the soul, and my soul is a lumberjack's sole. — Sock
Thou hast not said that the soul is among those dead things which living things must spring from; thou hast not said that a living soul produces a dead soul, or that a dead soul produces a living one Plato. — Imaginary Conversations and Poems A Selection
You have no soul, and the soul is all that raises man above the beasts. — The Monster Men
The father paused a moment and then went on: "Your soul is your soul--not John Barclay's, my boy--not Jeanette Barclay's--but yours--yours, Neal, to blight or to cherish, as you will." — A Certain Rich Man

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (4)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Middle English, from Old English sāwol.

Century Dictionary (3)

from Middle English soule, sowle, saule, sawle, saull, from Anglo-Saxon sāwel, sāwol, sāwul, sāwl, sāul, sāwle, life, spirit, soul, = Old Saxon sēola, sēole, sīole, sēle = OFries. siele, sēle = Middle Dutch siele, Dutch ziel = MLG.sēle, Low German sele, sal = Old High German sēla, sēula, MHG.sēle, German seele = Icelandic sāla, later sāl = Swedish själ = Danish sjæl = Gothic (Moesogothic) saiwala, soul (transitive Greek ψυχή, etc.); origin unknown. The word has been compared with Greek αἰόλος quick-moving, changeful, and with sea (see sea); also with L. sæculum, age (life, vitality?) (see secle, secular).
from Middle English sowlen; from soul, n.
Also sool; from Middle English soule, sowle, souel, saule, saulee, food, = Danish sul, meat eaten with bread.

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