Etymologically
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sowie

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Pronunciation

  • Germany: [zoˈviː][1]
  • Austria, Southern-Germany, Switzerland: [soˈviː][1]

Forms

sowie[1]

Etymology

It is from German so + wie, written together from the phrase “so wie”.[1][2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Grimms' dictionary first quotes it from Lessing, as a strengthened wie in comparisons with the sense “according as”.[3]

Semantic evolution

The Grimms list three uses at the end of the 19th century: the comparative particle, the joining particle “as well as”, which was then still more often written apart as so … wie, and, in colloquial speech, a conjunction of time for sobald.[3] Both the joining sense and the sense of time are standard today.[4]

Meanings

Conjunction

  1. As well as, and also, joining the members of a list: Eingeladen sind die Lehrer sowie die Eltern.[4][1]
  2. As soon as: Sowie der Regen aufhört, gehen wir los.[4][1][2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
  3. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 16, 1824
  4. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag