Sooner

Part of speech: adverb

Pronunciation: /ˈsuːnə/

Definitions

1. At a time that is earlier than anticipated or planned
2. Before the expected time frame or in a way that happens ahead of schedule
3. Happening before the usual or predicted time

Etymology: "Sooner" is simply the comparative of "soon", and the surprise lies in "soon" itself, which once meant something close to "immediately". Old English "sōna" meant "at once" or "right away", and for centuries "soon" carried that urgency: a speaker who said they would come soon was promising to come straight away, not in a while. Its ancestors across the Germanic languages, from Gothic "suns" to Old High German "sār", share this sense of immediacy, and the word's sense only drifted toward "before long" as time went on. The comparative built from it followed the same path. If "soon" meant "at once", then "sooner" meant "more quickly" or "more readily", which explains its older sense of preferring one thing to another, as in "I would sooner walk". The modern meaning of "earlier than expected" is a later narrowing of that idea of rapidity.

Synonyms: earlier, rather

Antonyms: later