soever

[ soh-ev-er ]

adverb

1. at all; in any case; of any kind; in any way (used with generalizing force after who, what, when, where, how, any, all, etc., sometimes separated by intervening words):

   Choose what thing soever you please.

soever

/ səʊˈɛvə /

adverb

1. in any way at all: used to emphasize or make less precise a word or phrase, usually in combination with what, where, when, how, etc, or else separated by intervening words Compare whatsoever

Word History and Origins

Origin of soever¹

First recorded in 1510–20; so ¹ + ever

Example Sentences

“In the woods,” he writes, “a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child.”

From The Guardian

The very first sentence of “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” reads: “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.”

From Economist

At a time when religious conversion could spare an African or Native American from permanent servitude, Locke wrote a provision in The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina—the governing document for the colony that would become North Carolina and South Carolina—that specified that slaves could be “of what opinion or Religion soever … But yet, no Slave shall hereby be exempted from that civil dominion his Master has over him, but be in all other things in the same State and condition he was in before.”

From Slate

“How selfish soever man may be supposed,” Smith wrote, “there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.” that Feldman sometimes tells his economist friends.

From Literature

The OED records Philemon Holland's 1601 translation of the Latin historian Pliny: "The seed of this hearbe remooveth the tough humours bedded in the stomacke, how hard impacted soever they be."

From BBC