Entry · catalog no. 9501
soul sister
/ /ˈsoʊl ˌsɪstɚ/ /SOHL SIS-ter
noun · United States (Black communities) · 1960s
✓ Verified
1.
A Black woman felt to share one's culture, pride and way of being; a sister in the community, not necessarily by blood. Used both as a term of address and as praise.
“She walked in, nodded to every soul sister in the room, and the whole room warmed up.”
Origin & Attribution
Built on the Black-pride sense of "soul" that took hold in the late 1950s and 1960s, meaning the shared cultural depth of Black life. Green's Dictionary of Slang records "soul brother" in 1959 (Jazz: A Quarterly of American Music) and "soul sister" for a Black woman in 1965 (H. Rhodes, Chosen Few). The term belongs to the Black Power and soul era and is not credited to any one person or organization. Earlier, unrelated uses of the same two words are not treated here as the origin.
1959
"Soul brother" recorded in Jazz: A Quarterly of American Music.
1965
"Soul sister" recorded for a Black woman in H. Rhodes, Chosen Few.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
United States (Black communities) · 1960s
Spoken by
Black women and men of the soul and Black Power generation and after
$SOULSIThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady5 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
45/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1965
in the culture
Recorded here
2026
point of first record
Mainstream crossover
1970
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
+ Cite a sourceGreen's Dictionary of Slang, 'soul brother' / 'soul sister' entries (quoting Jazz: A Quarterly of American Music, 1959; H. Rhodes, Chosen Few, 1965)
dictionary, 1965
See also