Definition of "much as"

The Blackfeet knew and marked him as he passed; their eyes glared with vindictive fury; he was within bowshot of their ambuscade; yet, much as they thirsted for his blood, they forbore to launch a shaft; sparing him for the moment, that he might lead them to their prey.

1837, Washington Irving, chapter XVI, in The Rocky Mountains: Or, Scenes, Incidents, and Adventures in the Far West; […], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: [Henry Charles] Carey, [Isaac] Lea, & Blanchard, page 168

And then bills were sent in, and the question arose, what could Jude do with his great-aunt's heavy old furniture if he left the town to travel he knew not whither? This, and the necessity of ready money, compelled him to decide on an auction, much as he would have preferred to keep the venerable goods.

1894 December – 1895 November, Thomas Hardy, chapter VI, in Jude the Obscure, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1896, part V (At Aldbrickham and Elswhere), page 360

Much as I wish that I had not to write this chapter, I know that I shall have to swallow many such bitter draughts in the course of this narrative. And I cannot do otherwise, if I claim to be a worshipper of Truth.

1927, M[ohandas] K[aramchand] Gandhi, “Child Marriage”, in Mahadev Desai, transl., The Story of My Experiments with Truth: Translated from the Original in Gujarati, volume I, Ahmedabad, Gujarat: Navajivan Press, part I, page 26

[H]e disappeared into his house much as a startled weazel makes for its hole.

1888, J[ames] M[atthew] Barrie, “The Old Dominie”, in Auld Licht Idylls, London: Hodder and Stoughton, […], page 138

Tharoor cannot forbear to praise the achievements of men like Arthur Cotton, whose Godavari Delta irrigation scheme remains much as he left it in 1852.

2017 September 7, Ferdinand Mount, “Umbrageousness”, in Mary-Kay Wilmers, editor, London Review of Books‎, volume 39, number 17, London: LRB Ltd., archived from the original on 19 April 2021

Much as a single shop may pass down through the children and grandchildren of a family, losing or gaining with each generation, its fortunes and its reputation in flux, so the British high street has been improved and degraded through successive waves of stewardship

2020 September 1, Tom Lamont, “The butcher’s shop that lasted 300 years (give or take)”, in The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, archived from the original on 19 May 2021