soothfast

English

Etymology

From Middle English sothfast, from Old English sōþfæst (“true, trustworthy”), from Proto-West Germanic *sanþafast. Equivalent to sooth +‎ fast.

Adjective

soothfast

1. (archaic) Actual; real.
   • 2012, original 1885, Sir Richard Burton, The Arabian Nights:

     So she brought him the China bowl saying in herself, “I shall know what to do when I find out if the words of my child concerning these jewels be soothfast or not”; […]

   • 2009, J. P. MacLean, A History of the Clan MacLean, page 452:

     But her brother has taken and joined their hands,
     And so soothfast was the kiss —
     So dear love's due to her lips so true —
     She had like to have died of bliss; […]

   • 2022, Neil Munro, Brian D. Osborne, Ronald Armstrong, That Vital Spark, page 182:

     “I'll take your word for it,” said he, with another glance at a very soothfast mask that came down on as sweet a pair of lips as ever man took craving for.

   • 2022, Evelyn Underhill, The Cloud of Unknowing:

     And hereby mayest thou see and learn, that there is no soothfast security, nor yet no true rest in this life.

2. (archaic) Based on the truth, true; faithful; honest, veracious
   • 1818 July 25, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Company, →OCLC:

     Why do not you […] bear leal and soothfast evidence in her behalf, as ye may with a clear conscience?

   • 1887, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume III, [London]: […] Burton Club […], →OCLC, page 10:

     "O mother mine, verily this Shaykh is soothfast and no liar: for the first time he but tried me and now he proposeth to perform his promise."

   • 2015, Richard Francis Burton, John Payne, Andrew Lang, One Thousand and One Nights:

     But he said to her, “Nay, mother mine, indeed he is soothfast and lieth not; for that, in the first of his dealing, he tried me and now his intent is to accomplish unto me his promise.”

   • 2020, George Gordon Byron, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Christopher Marlowe, Harvard on the Beach:

     The "soothfast" souls adore true gods; […]

Derived terms

• soothfastly
• soothfastness

Translations

based on the truth

• Finnish: todellinen (fi)

based on the truth

• Finnish: todenmukainen (fi)

Adverb

soothfast

1. (obsolete) Actually; truthfully.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:actually

   • 1867, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “May-Day”, in May-Day and Other Pieces, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 24:

     I care not if the pomps you show / Be what they soothfast appear, / Or if yon realms in sunset glow / Be bubbles of the atmosphere.