Where does “whithersoever” come from?
I appreciate the challenge, but I need to flag a critical issue: the etymology chain provided appears corrupted or circular—it cycles through "English sol," "Latin sol," and "English sol" repeatedly without clear progression, and doesn't actually connect to "whither" or explain how it relates to "whithersoever." Without a coherent etymological chain showing how these elements combine to form "whithersoever," I cannot write an accurate one-sentence origin summary. Could you verify the chain? A plausible path might trace "whithersoever" as "whither" (where) + "soever" (ever/however), but that's reconstruction, not following your provided data.
whithersoever (English): To what place soever; wherever
Definitions
- To what place soever; wherever
Ancestry of “whithersoever”, step by step
whithersoever traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English soever
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | soever | In any fashion, of any kind; used for emphasis... |
| 2 | English | So | A Mon-Khmer-speaking people of Laos and Thailand;... |
| 3 | English | Sol | The Sun, the star orbited by the Earth |
| 4 | Old French | sol | alone; sol; Old French coin |
| 5 | Latin | solidum | solid |
| 6 | Latin | solidus | solid; A solidus: a Roman ~23-carat gold coin... |
| 7 | Proto-Italic | soliðos | — |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | solh₂-i-dʰ-o-s | entire |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | solh₂- | whole |