so

1. reducedReduced form of 'so that', used to express purpose; in order that.

   Eat your broccoli so you can have dessert.

   1 more example

   I got an earlier train to work so I'd have plenty of time to prepare for the meeting.

   Synonyms: so that, that

2. As a result; for that reason; therefore; because of this; due to this.

   He ate too much cake and so he fell ill.

   4 more examples

   I was hungry, so I asked if there was any more food.

   He wanted a book, so he went to the library.

   “I need to go to the bathroom.” ― “So go!”

   Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’[…].” So I started to back away again into the bushes. But I hadn't backed more'n a couple of yards when I see something so amazing that I couldn't help scooching down behind the bayberries and looking at it.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

3. Used to connect previous conversation or events to the following question.

   So how does this story end?

4. Used to introduce a rhetorical question.

   “We'd like to visit but I don't know if we can afford a hotel.” — “So who's staying in a hotel? Stay with us.”

5. archaicProvided that; on condition that; as long as.

   As we cal money not onely that which is true and good, but also the false; so it be currant.

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 18, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC

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   Speed. ‘Item: She doth talk in her sleep.’ Launce. It’s no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk.

   c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]

   […] though all the windes of doctrin were let loose play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licencing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength.

   1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 35

   I went away very well satisfy’d, not caring where I was sent, so it was but out of his Sight; for he now became more my Aversion than ever.

   1743, Robert Drury, The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar, London, page 111

1. not comparableTo the (explicitly stated) extent.

   He was so good, they hired him on the spot.

   5 more examples

   It was so hot outside that all the plants died.

   You behaviour so incensed me that I even thought of firing you.

   It was so cold a day that I could hardly breathe outside.

   So ridiculously did I do in the exam that mom grounded me for a month.

   Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’[…].” So I started to back away again into the bushes. But I hadn't backed more'n a couple of yards when I see something so amazing that I couldn't help scooching down behind the bayberries and looking at it.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

2. not comparableTo the (implied) extent.

   I need a piece of cloth so long. [= this long]

   1 more example

   We drove back to the office with some concern on my part at the prospect of so large a case. Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke.

   1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

3. not comparableVery (positive or negative clause).

   I feel so much better now.

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   I so nearly lost my temper.

   It’s not so bad. [i.e. it's acceptable]

   Captain Edward Carlisle[…]felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze,[…]; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a duty, cursed especially that fate which forced a gallant soldier to meet so superb a woman as this under handicap so hard.

   1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

4. not comparableVery much.

   But I so want to see the Queen when she visits our town!

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   Molly the dairymaid came a little way from the rickyard, and said she would pluck the pigeon that very night after work. She was always ready to do anything for us boys; and we could never quite make out why they scolded her so for an idle hussy indoors. It seemed so unjust.

   1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC

   I so wanted to be Jess Harley again.

   1989, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #5, Archie Comics

   Yeah! Not eating is so 90’s!

   2003 April 16, Michael Stokes, “I, Dude”, in Totally Spies!, season 2, episode 9, spoken by Clover (Andrea Taylor), Marathon Media, via Teletoon

   1. informalnot comparableat all (negative clause).

      That is so not true!

5. not comparableIn the same manner or to the same extent as aforementioned; likewise, also.

   As above, so below.

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   Just as you have the right to your free speech, so I have the right to mine.

   Many people say she's the world's greatest athlete, but I don't think so.

   "I can count backwards from one hundred." "So can I."

   He wants to eat now. So does she.

   "Good morrow to thee, jolly fellow," quoth Robin, "thou seemest happy this merry morn." ¶ "Ay, that am I," quoth the jolly Butcher, "and why should I not be so? Am I not hale in wind and limb? Have I not the bonniest lass in all Nottinghamshire? And lastly, am I not to be married to her on Thursday next in sweet Locksley Town?"

   1883, Howard Pyle, chapter V, in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […], →OCLC

   Synonyms: like this, thus

6. not comparableIndeed.

   ‘There are two more.’ ‘So there are.’

   1 more example

   ‘Look, it’s just stopped raining.’ ‘So it has!’

7. not comparableTo such an extent or degree; as.

   so far as;  so long as;  so much as

comparative more so · superlative most so

1. Agreeing with actual facts or reality; true.

   That is so.

   3 more examples

   You are responsible for this, is that not so?

   “My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”

   1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

   The details of her own life crowded out everything else; almost every time I saw Min, she had something new to tell me. It sometimes felt as if the laws of the physical world did not apply to her, that she had only to think of something — a job switch, a breakup — to make it so. If I didn’t see her for a while, she might forget to tell me that she had quit a factory or gotten a raise, because in her mind she had already moved on.

   2008, Leslie T. Chang, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China, New York: Spiegel & Grau, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 73

   Synonyms: correct, right, true

2. In that state or manner; with that attribute. A proadjective that replaces the aforementioned adjective phrase.

   "You're definitely not right about that." "I am so!" (→I am right about that).

   3 more examples

   If this separation was painful to all parties, it was most so to Martha.

   1823, Andrew Reed, Martha

   But if I had been more fit to be married, I might have made you more so too.

   1872, Charles Dickens, “The Personal History of David Copperfield”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)

   It must be understood that while the nelumbiums are hardy, they are so only as long as the tubers are out of the reach of frost.

   1947, Liberty Hyde Bailey, The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture

3. UKdatedslangHomosexual.

   Is he so?

   Synonyms: musical

1. Used after a pause for thought to introduce a new topic, question or story, or a new thought or question in continuation of an existing topic.

   So, let's go home.

   4 more examples

   So, what'll you have?

   So, there was this squirrel stuck in the chimney...

   So, everyone wants to know – did you win the contest or not?

   So, after a spell, he decided to make the best of it and shoved us into the front parlor. 'Twas a dismal sort of place, with hair wreaths, and wax fruit, and tin lambrekins, and land knows what all.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter XI, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

   Synonyms: look, well, see, hey

2. Used as a question to ask for further explanation of something said, often rhetorically or in a dismissive or impolite manner.

   "You park your car in front of my house every morning." — "So?"

3. Used as a meaningless filler word to begin a response to a question.

   What are you doing? / So I'm just fixing this shelf.

   1 more example

   What time does the train leave? / So it leaves at 10 o'clock.

4. archaicBe as you are; stand still; used especially to cows; also used by sailors.

1. demonstrativeThat which was previously mentioned; that.

   I'll become a loyal friend and remain so.

   3 more examples

   If that's what you really mean, then just say so.

   You may need to refer to litigation as a procedure, and when you have done so, you can say a matter is "in litigation".

   "When I went to Venice, I discovered that my dream had become—incredibly but quite simply—my address." So wrote Marcel Proust, capturing the essence of a city where water, light, art, and memory converge.

   2026 May 28, Alessandra Pellegrino, “Palazzo Pant”, in Architectural Digest, volume 83, number 4, page 26

1. abbreviationAbbreviation of someone.

   Synonyms: sb

plural sos

1. entertainmentA syllable used in solfège to represent the fifth note of a major scale.
   1. entertainmentSometimes syllable for both the second and the fifth.

1. uncountablefoodsA type of dairy product, made especially in Japan between the seventh and tenth centuries, by reducing milk by boiling it.

plural SOs

1. abbreviationinitialismInitialism of significant other.
2. abbreviationinitialismhobbiesInitialism of shut out.
3. abbreviationinitialismhobbiesInitialism of shootout.
4. abbreviationinitialismball gamesInitialism of strike out.
5. abbreviationinitialismcomputerInitialism of second-order logic.
6. abbreviationinitialismentertainmentInitialism of symphony orchestra.
7. abbreviationchemistryAbbreviation of singlet oxygen.
8. abbreviationparliamentarygovernmentAbbreviation of standing order.

1. abbreviationinitialismInitialism of someone.

1. abbreviationinitialismInitialism of Stack Overflow.

   Imagine that you were creating an application similar to SO but were writing it using web forms.

   2010, Alex Mackey, “ASP.NET MVC”, in Introducing .NET 4.0: With Visual Studio 2010 (The Expert’s Voice in .NET), [Berkeley, Calif.]: Apress, →ISBN, page 290

   2 more examples

   SO threads are mapped back into QuestionSheets. Information collected from SO includes the answer itself, the contributor’s reputation, and the number of votes (if any) (see Fig. 5).

   2018, Oscar Díaz, Jeremías P. Contell, “Educating Users to Formulate Questions in Q&A Platforms: A Scaffold for Google Sheets”, in John Krogstie, Hajo A. Reijers, editors, Advanced Information Systems Engineering: 30th International Conference, CAiSE 2018, Tallinn, Estonia, June 11–15, 2018, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science; 10816), Cham: Springer, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 163

   While using a Python program to query SO’s API helps me gain a better understanding of SO’s software source code, I should note that much uncertainty regarding SO’s programmed arguments still abounds. Part of this uncertainty is a result of limits companies like SO place on programmers who wish to access their data, but a large portion also stems from my choice to use Python.

   2021, Sean McCullough, “Reprogramming Rhetoric: Toward a Diffractive Epistemology of Computer Composition”, in Kai Merten, editor, Diffractive Reading: New Materialism, Theory, Critique, Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, part III (Diffracting (in) Music, Visual, and Digital Media), page 302

1. pluralplural onlyA Mon-Khmer-speaking people of Laos and Thailand.

1. alternativeAlternative form of So..

1. A Chinese surname from Cantonese.