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WIKTIONARY VIA KAIKKI / WIKTEXTRACT

Imported dictionary evidence

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These are source reports, not reviewed *SET-U ancestry. A list of templates or numbered etymologies is not an ancestor chain. Scholarly disagreements remain in the original source text.

35,981 English word records · 45,491 etymology sections in this online subset

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3 source sections across 1 headword matching “Soul”. These are separate from the reviewed results below.

Open the permanent entry for soul →
soulEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *saiwalō Proto-West Germanic *saiwalu Old English sāwol Middle English soule English soul 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 (“soul”), Swedish själ (“soul”), Finnish sielu (“soul”) may have come from Old English sāwol.

Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗
soulEnglish (en) · Etymology 1Source text

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *saiwalō Proto-West Germanic *saiwalu Old English sāwol Middle English soule English soul 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 (“soul”), Swedish själ (“soul”), Finnish sielu (“soul”) may have come from Old English sāwol.

Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗
soulEnglish (en) · Etymology 2Source text

Borrowed from French souler (“to satiate”).

Original Wiktionary entry and references ↗

From Wiktionary contributors; extracted by Tatu Ylonen / Wiktextract / Kaikki.org. Extraction source · CC-BY-SA-4.0. Selected source text is reformatted for display; language and section identity are retained.

Source dump: 2026-10-01 · Extraction: 2026-10-30. These dates identify a dump snapshot, not an individual page revision.

Snapshot checksums and coverage
SOURCE SHA-256
5ff2c072f8099f2d2ce484bd6957bf179f046d2ad37bc36555edf8bb84cb5291
CORPUS SHA-256
c4c2a77325141846709230e11c2959332acd630d53e52905b72d36211251b081
IMPORT RUN
73216b9a9b78ed3830994bf853103716f5a4dc57099e371e9f8fdc468facca26
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INDEPENDENT SOURCE LIBRARY

More sources for this spelling

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2REVIEWED RESULTS
0WORD DOSSIERS
0HISTORICAL NODES
0SOURCES
1CLAIMS
1WITNESSES
01

MODERN ENTRY POINTS

WORD DOSSIERS

0

No reviewed record in this collection contains “soul.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.

02

ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY

HISTORICAL FORMS

0

No reviewed record in this collection contains “soul.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.

03

WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED

CLAIMS & DISPUTES

1

SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 1

resolvedestablishedposition text

Did fijan denote only an inward feeling?

No. Ayora Estevan analyzes it as an experience verb whose Experiencer takes a Stimulus as accusative object. Surviving objects include people, one’s soul, one’s flesh, evils, and what one does, so the grammar encodes a relation toward an object rather than a free-floating feeling alone.

CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 0

04

BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES

SOURCES

0

No reviewed record in this collection contains “soul.” Absence describes this graph, not all of linguistic scholarship.

05

FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS

ATTESTATION WITNESSES

1
06

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