Definition

properly, a breathing creature, i.e. animal of (abstractly) vitality; used very widely in a literal, accommodated or figurative sense (bodily or mental)

Etymology

from H5314 (נָפַשׁ);

Where the KJV renders it

• any
• appetite
• beast
• body
• breath
• creature
• dead(-ly)
• desire
• (dis-) contented
• fish
• ghost
• greedy
• he
• heart(-y)
• (hath
• jeopardy of) life ( in jeopardy)
• lust
• man
• me
• mind
• mortally
• one
• own
• person
• pleasure
• (her-
• him-
• my-
• thy-) self
• them (your) -selves
• slay
• soul
• tablet
• they
• thing
• ( she) will
• would have it

Every distinct English word the King James Version uses to translate this Hebrew term. The variety shows what readers in English receive across many different surface words — the same underlying word, scattered across the English Bible under different names.

What the first audience heard

A deep-dive treatment of this word is in the works. The featured chapter above carries the long form of what this word meant to its first audience.