[Attributive use of prec.]
1. Taking place, coming about, happening, etc., soon or quickly; early, speedy.
a. 1400. Minor Poems fr. Vernon MS., xxv. 49. Heil, sone boote þer bale is neih.
a. 1425. trans. Arderne’s Treat. Fistula, etc. 70. I haue proued þis ful oft tymez for to be most sone helpyng.
a. 1470. Dives & Pauper (W. de W., 1496), IX. iv. 352/1. Soone byleuynge of lesynges bryngeth people to moche folye.
1546. Langley, trans. Pol. Verg. de Invent., II. (1844), 105. The olde proverbe is true: that as soone sowing sometime deceaveth, so late sowing is alway naught.
1591. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. vii. 247. His hardned heart Smoothed the passage for their soon-depart.
1621. Quarles, Div. Poems, Esther, iv. The proiect pleas’d the King, who made an Act To second what was said with soone effect.
1691. T. H[ale], Acc. New Invent., 79. The soon decay I cannot impute to the Lead-sheathing.
1771. Luckombe, Hist. Printing, 350. Having too much wooll in them … will subject them to soon hardening.
1838. Holloway, Prov. Dict., Soon,… the soon or early part of the night.
1891. Miss Dowie, Girl in Karp., 287. A white mist, thick, in the soon-twilight to be impenetrable.
2. In comparative: a. Earlier; more speedy or expeditious, etc.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Sel. Wks., I. 235. But Crist tolde hem of sounere perils, þat was betere hem to knowe.
1559. Mirr. Mag. (1563), D viij. Which that I myght bryng to the sooner ende, To the byshop of Yorke I dyd the mater breake.
1607. in M. H. Peacock, Hist. Wakefield Gram. Sch. (1892), 67. Unless in the mean tyme … a sooner daie of meetinge be appointed.
1665. J. Webb, Stone-Heng (1725), 90. For the sooner Dispatch, and saving of Cost.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., 110. There are no signs amongst them of sooner or later production.
1771. Ann. Reg., Chron., 173/1. From the death, or any sooner determination of the interest therein, of John York, Esq.
1889. Stevenson, Master Ballantrae, iii. Which would give us safety for the present, and a sooner hope of deliverance.
† b. Former, previous. Obs.–1
1495. Trevisa’s Barth. De P. R., XIV. xxxiv. 480. There growe vines and … apples of palmes as token of the sooner [MS. raþer] plente.
3. In superlative: a. Earliest. Also absol.
1591. Parsons, in Imp. Consid. (1675), 79. He … cannot … refuse at the soonest opportunity to attempt it.
1631. Massinger, Emperor East, I. i. (1632), B ij b. And we in priuate with our soonest leasure Will giue ’em hearing.
1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., vi. 27. If they think that there may be a Soonest Instant of possible Creation.
1760–72. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual. (1809), III. 92. I was therefore up among the soonest.
b. Speediest; quickest. Now dial.
1591. Troub. Raigne K. John, II. (1611), 73. The King entreats your soonest speed To visit him.
1592. Kyd, Sp. Trag., IV. iv. 110. With soonest speed I hasted to the noise.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., III. iv. 27. Make your soonest hast, So your desires are yours.
1825. Jamieson, Suppl., s.v., The soonest gait, the nearest road.
1897. in Eng. Dial. Dict., s.v., I said that would be [the] safest … or soonest road for us to go.
