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From Middle English so that, so þat, sa þat, swo þat, swa þat, from Old English swā þæt, equivalent to so + that. Cognate with Saterland Frisian sodät, West Frisian sadat, Dutch zodat, German sodaß, sodass.
- Indicates purpose; in order that, with the result that.
- He must die so that others might live.
- 1900 May 17, L[yman] Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.: Geo[rge] M. Hill Co., OCLC 297099816:
- He seized his axe, which he had made very sharp, and as the leader of the wolves came on the Tin Woodman swung his arm and chopped the wolf's head from its body, so that it immediately died.
- Indicates purpose; in such a way that, with the intent that.
- He tied a complex knot so that others would find it hard to undo.
- 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart; Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, OCLC 20230794, page 01:
- The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.
- “So that” prefaces a subordinate clause to show purpose or to give an explanation. It demonstrates a correlation between an antecedent action and an intended consequent. In a clause 1 “so that” clause2 format, the first clause represents an antecedent proposition and the second clause constitutes a consequence/effect. In a “So that” clause 1 [comma], clause 2 format, the first clause is the intended consequent and the second clause is the antecedent proposition.
in order to
in such a way that, with the intent that
- so that at OneLook Dictionary Search
- so that in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911