soul

Etymology 1

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 uncertain ultimate origin (see there for further information). Cognate with Scots saul, sowel (“soul”), North Frisian siel, sial (“soul”), Saterland Frisian Seele (“soul”), West Frisian siel (“soul”), Dutch ziel (“soul”), German Seele (“soul”) Scandinavian homonyms seem to have been borrowed from Old Saxon *siala. Modern Danish sjæl, Swedish själ, Norwegian sjel. Icelandic sál may have come from Old English sāwol.

noun

1. (religion, folklore) 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.
   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.
2. The spirit or essence of anything.
   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
3. Life, energy, vigor.
4. (music) Soul music.
5. 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.
6. An individual life.
   Fifty souls were lost when the ship sank.
7. (mathematics) A kind of submanifold involved in the soul theorem of Riemannian geometry.

verb

1. (obsolete, transitive) To endow with a soul or mind.
2. To beg on All Soul's Day.
   Coordinate term: trick-or-treat
   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

Etymology 2

Borrowed from French souler (“to satiate”).

verb

1. (obsolete) To afford suitable sustenance.
   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