soy
/sɔɪ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.63 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A common East Asian liquid sauce, made by subjecting boiled beans to long fermentation and then long digestion in salt and water.
Uncountable
name
A surname.
Example Sentences
- "I like a little soy with my rice."
- "Pour in four tablespoonfuls of sherry and four tablespoonfuls of soy, as much vinegar as the jar will hold, and cover closely until wanted."
- "These candles are made from soy."
- "The soy crop is looking good this year."
- "This diet doesn't let me eat soy."
- "This whole drama is the soyest thing I've ever seen."
Etymology
Etymology tree Chinese 醬油 /酱油obor. Japanese 醤油 Japanese そやbor. Dutch sojabor. English soy 1670s; borrowed from Dutch soja, from the Satsuma pronunciation of Japanese 醤油 (soi), variant of the standard Japanese 醤油 (shōyu). Doublet of shoyu, orthographic borrowing from Middle Chinese 醬油 (tsjàng-yuw), from 醬 (tsjangᴴ, “bean paste”) + 油 (“oil”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: 醤油, 醬油, soye, soie, sēta, *saitā
Usage
Inflected Forms
soys (plural)
soya (alternative)
more soy (comparative)
soyer (comparative)
most soy (superlative)
soyest (superlative)
soys (present, singular)
soying (participle, present)
soyed (participle, past)
soyed (past)