souls

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of soul.

   The captain prayed for the souls of the sailors lost at sea.

   Compassion for the weary souls in the refugee camp moved her to act.

   Note

   The plural is most useful when it counts people. In a town of two thousand souls, or with every soul aboard, souls simply means persons, each one among many, and it sounds more solemn than people. The spiritual sense also takes a plural, as in praying for the souls of the dead. The form is the same in both cases, so only context tells them apart.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of soul.

   Note

   The verb's -s form is regular and spelled exactly like the plural noun, so only the sentence separates them: he souls is a verb, while the souls is a noun. The meanings to endow with a soul and to feed are both obsolete. A present-day he souls therefore almost always refers to the All Souls' Day custom of going door to door begging for soul-cakes.

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