soonyoudaoicibaDictYouDict[soon 词源字典]
soon: [OE] In Old English times, soon meant ‘straightaway’, but human nature being what it is, the tendency to procrastinate led over the centuries to a change in meaning to ‘after a short while’. (The same thing happened to anon, and is in the process of happening to directly.) The word itself comes from a prehistoric West Germanic *sǣnō, whose other descendants apart from soon have all but died out.
[soon etymology, soon origin, 英语词源]
soon (adv.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
Old English sona "at once, immediately, directly, forthwith," from Proto-Germanic *sæno (cognates: Old Frisian son, Old Saxon sana, Old High German san, Gothic suns "soon"). Sense softened early Middle English to "within a short time" (compare anon). American English. Sooner for "Oklahoma native" is 1930 (earlier "one who acts prematurely," 1889), from the 1889 opening to whites of what was then part of Indian Territory, when many would-be settlers sneaked onto public land and staked their claims "sooner" than the legal date and time.