soever

alternative somever

1. archaicnot comparableIn any fashion, of any kind; used for emphasis after words such as how, what, which etc.

   For quotations using this term, see Citations:soever.

   5 more examples

   How long soever it hath continued, if it be against reason, it is of no force in law.

   1669, John Owen, A Practical Exposition on the 130th Psalm

   For, by the fundamental Laws of the Realm, it is Capital in any Perſon, of what Quality ſoever, to make water within the Precincts of the Palace.

   1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author by an Extraordinary Stratagem Prevents an Invasion. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part I (A Voyage to Lilliput), page 91

   She had shown him all—had shown all, poor darling! only to be snubbed by a prig, driven away by a boor, fled from by a fool. To the nethermost corner of his soul, he cursed himself for what he had done, and for all he had left undone. He would go to her on his knees. He would implore her to impose on him insufferable penances. There was no penance, how bittersweet soever, could make him a little worthy of her.

   1911 October 26, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson, or, An Oxford Love Story, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, published 1912, →OCLC

   And in the meanwhile, Society shivered a little feverishly, filled now with the scions of those who had come over with the Jewish and American Conquests. Escutcheons were becoming valueless, how sinister soever the blots and clots upon them.

   1922, Michael Arlen, “1/5/1”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days

   [T]hen go in silence and, though anything soever of an awful sort or man meet thee, say not thou to him any word ere thou come to the wort which on the evening before thou markedst[.]

   1922, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals, London: Longmans, Green and Co., page 16