Definition of "so"

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. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

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, [Act III, scene i]

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 […]

[…] 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.], 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

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. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine. The machine gun is so much more lethal than the bow and arrow that comparisons are meaningless.

2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845

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.

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

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., […]

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

Don′t know what it is that makes me love you so, / I only know I never want to let you go.

1963, Mike Hawker, Ivor Raymonde (music and lyrics), Dusty Springfield (vocalist), I Only Want to Be with You (single)

"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 […]

The work thus done has probably been of the greatest value to the human race; but, just as in other cases it has sometimes happened that the effort to do a certain work has resulted in the end in an unbalanced exaggeration so here.

1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 192

It was a goal that meant West Ham won on their first appearance at Wembley in 31 years, in doing so becoming the first team since Leicester in 1996 to bounce straight back to the Premier League through the play-offs.

2012 May 19, Paul Fletcher, “Blackpool 1-2 West Ham”, in BBC Sport

it's okay to be different'Cause baby, so am I

2019, Amanda Koci, Henry Walter, Charlie Puth, Maria Smith, Victor Thellm, Gigi Grombacher, Roland Spreckle (lyrics and music), “So Am I”, performed by Ava Max

“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

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

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. Lincoln, chapter 11, in Mr. Pratt's Patients