soon

From Middle English sone, from Old English sōna (“immediately, at once”), from Proto-West Germanic *sān(ō), from Proto-Germanic *sēna, *sēnô (“immediately, soon, then”), from *sa (demonstrative pronoun), from Proto-Indo-European *só (demonstrative pronoun).

Cognate with Scots sone, sune, schone (“soon, quickly, at once”), North Frisian san (“immediately, at once”), dialectal Dutch zaan (“soon, before long”), Middle Low German sân (“right afterwards, soon”), Middle High German sān, son (“soon, then”), Old High German sār (“immediately, soon”). Compare also Gothic 𐍃𐌿𐌽𐍃 (suns, “immediately, soon”), from Proto-Germanic *suniz (“soon”).

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: so͞on, IPA^(key): /suːn/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /sun/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːn

soon (comparative sooner, superlative soonest)

1. Short in length of time from the present.

   I need the soonest date you have available.

2. (US, dialect) Early.
   • 1992, W. H. Andrews, A Paul Green Reader, page 129:

     Late in the evening we arrived at Quincy where we bivouacked for the night and taken a soon start the next morning to march to the arsenal.

   • 1997, Dorothy Stanaland Samuel, Taliaferro Leslie Samuel, The Samuell/Samuel Families of Tidewater Virginia, page 148:

     Got up pretty early, ate a soon breakfast, had the sulky and was about to start to Newtown when it commenced raining..

   • 2000, Laurence G. Avery, A Paul Green Reader, page 220:

     They were different from colored folks who had to be out to get a soon start.

3. Used as an alternative to express 'to be going to' in the form 'to be soon to'.

   Hurry up, the wedding is soon to start!

   A new shop is soon to be opened in this street.

soon (comparative sooner, superlative soonest)

1. (obsolete) Immediately, instantly.
2. Within a short time; quickly.
   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     Then everybody once more knelt, and soon the blessing was pronounced. The choir and the clergy trooped out slowly, […] , down the nave to the western door. […] At a seemingly immense distance the surpliced group stopped to say the last prayer.

   • 2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884:

     Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese […] began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated. The poisoning was irreversible, and soon ended in psychosis and death.

3. (now dialectal) Early.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 2:18:

     How is it that ye are come so soon to day?

   • 1937, Zora Neale Hurston, chapter 6, in Their Eyes Were Watching God‎, University of Illinois Press, published 1978, page 87:

     “Been huntin’ fuh mah mule. Anybody seen ’im?” he asked.
     “Seen ’im soon dis mornin’ over behind de school-house,” Lum said. “’’Bout ten o’clock or so. He musta been out all night tuh be way over dere dat early.”

4. Readily; willingly; used with would, or some other word expressing will.
   • 1713, Joseph Addison, The Guardian, number 101:

     I would as soon see a river winding through woods or in meadows, as when it is tossed up in so many whimsical figures at Versailles.

• “soon”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “soon”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• noos, noso-, onos, oons, sono-

• sogn (Sappada, Sauris)

From Old High German sagēn, from Proto-West Germanic *saggjan, from Proto-Germanic *sagjaną, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sekʷ-.

Compare Low German seggen, Dutch zeggen, English say, Danish sige, Swedish säga.

soon

1. (Timau) to say

• Patuzzi, Umberto, ed., (2013) Luserna / Lusérn: Le nostre parole / Ünsarne börtar / Unsere Wörter [Our Words], Luserna, Italy: Comitato unitario delle isole linguistiche storiche germaniche in Italia / Einheitskomitee der historischen deutschen Sprachinseln in Italien

From Proto-Finnic *sooni, from Proto-Uralic *sëne. Cognates include Finnish suoni, Northern Mansi та̄н (tān) and Hungarian ín (“sinew”).

soon (genitive soone, partitive soont)

1. vein, blood vessel

• “soon”, in [EKSS] Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat [Descriptive Dictionary of the Estonian Language] (in Estonian) (online version), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2009
• “soon”, in [ÕS] Eesti õigekeelsussõnaraamat ÕS 2018 [Estonian Spelling Dictionary] (in Estonian) (online version), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2018, →ISBN
• soon in Sõnaveeb (Eesti Keele Instituut)

From French jaune.

• IPA^(key): /sɔːn/

soon

1. to be yellow

soon

1. Alternative form of zoon
   • 1867, “A YOLA ZONG”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 5, page 86:

     Mot w'all aar boust, hi soon was ee-teight

     But with all their bravado they were soon taught

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 86