soul · adj — characteristic of or pertaining to African American culture. It carries an Arena rating of 1896, earned across 30 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, soul ranks #29 of 17,144 for Most Malleable Words, #1,032 of 17,135 for Most Sublime Words, #1,748 of 17,135 for Most Beautiful Words, #2,588 of 17,136 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
soul is pronounced /səʊl/.
Why “soul” is a great word
Characteristic of or pertaining to African American culture, especially in music, food, or style. From Middle English soule, from Old English sāwol ('soul, life, spirit, being'), from Proto-West Germanic *saiwalu, from Proto-Germanic *saiwalō ('soul'); the adjectival sense is attested as jazz slang from 1946, deriving from the noun sense of 'the animating or essential part.' Unlike "spirit" (a disembodied ghost or vague force) or "essence" (the abstract, intrinsic nature of anything), soul denotes cultural authenticity and emotional depth rooted in a specific experience. It is the mournful wail of a saxophone over a steady backbeat, the slow-simmered collard greens on a Sunday table, and the fluid, effortless grace of a dancer moving to a funky bassline—the intangible weight of lived feeling, the cultural heartbeat made audible, tangible, real.
❧ Essay by Lexicurio’s AI · definition, etymology & citations from published sources
Etymology
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
adj
- Characteristic of or pertaining to African American culture.e.g.“soul music”
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.
- The spirit or essence of anything.
- Life, energy, vigor.
- 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.
- An individual life.e.g.“Fifty souls were lost when the ship sank.”
- A kind of submanifold involved in the soul theorem of Riemannian geometry.
verb
- To endow with a soul or mind.
- To beg on All Soul's Day.
- To feed or nourish.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).