Definition
adjShort in length of time from the present.
Sentence Examples
I will be back soon.
I may give up soon and just nap instead.
The dark clouds indicate that it will start raining very soon.
Word Origin & History
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”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 1992, W. H. Andrews, A Paul Green Reader, page 129:
"Got up pretty early, ate a soon breakfast, had the sulky and was about to start to Newtown when it commenced raining.."
— 1997, Dorothy Stanaland Samuel, Taliaferro Leslie Samuel, The Samuell/Samuel Families of Tidewater Virginia, page 148:
"They were different from colored folks who had to be out to get a soon start."
— 2000, Laurence G. Avery, A Paul Green Reader, page 220:
"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."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and 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."
— 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC: