Strain DCY21^T, a Gram-negative, gliding and rod-shaped aerobic bacterium was isolated from soil of a ginseng field in the Republic of Korea and characterized using a polyphasic approach in order to determine its taxonomic position. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that strain DCY21^T clustered with the species of the genus Lysobacter. It was closely related to Lysobacter gummosus LMG 8763^T (97.9 %), Lysobacter capsici YC5194^T (97.6 %), Lysobacter antibioticus DSM 2044^T (97.5 %), Lysobacter niastensis DSM 18481^T (97.2 %) and Lysobacter enzymogenes DSM 2043^T (96.9 %). The major cellular fatty acids of strain DCY21^T were iso-C_15 : 0 (34.3 %), iso-C_17 : 1 ω9c (19.5 %) and iso-C_17 : 0 (17.2 %) and the major isoprenoid quinone was Q-8. The major polar lipids of strain DCY21^T were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidyl-N-methylethanolamine. The G+C content of the total DNA was 65.4 mol%. The DNA–DNA relatedness values, and biochemical and physiological characteristics strongly supported the genotypic and phenotypic differentiation of strain DCY21^T from species of the genus Lysobacter. Strain DCY21^T therefore represents a novel species, for which the name Lysobacter soli sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is DCY21^T (=KCTC 22011^T =LMG 24126^T).