Word.ws English Dictionary

so be it

so be it phrase: an indication of acceptance, especially of a situation which is not entirely favorable.

Phrase

so be it

  1. (idiomatic, subjunctive) An indication of acceptance, especially of a situation which is not entirely favorable.
    • Minister of State: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Prime Minister, I beg to introduce a bill entitled an Act to amend the Interpretation Act.
      Clerk: Interpretation (Amendment) Bill.
      Speaker: Second reading what day?
      Minister of State: At the next available sitting.
      Speaker: So be it.
    • From storm to storm ! So be it, then. Born in throes, ’tis fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So be it, then! Here's stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Doubloon”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 480

so be it meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit

so be it in Hindi

indication of acceptance
तथास्तु tathāstu

so be it in Tamil

indication of acceptance
ஆகட்டும் ākaṭṭum

so be it in Telugu

so be it
తథాస్తు tathāstu

so be it in Sanskrit

indication of acceptance
तथास्तु tathāstu
More languagesFewer languages
so be it in Thai
ทำไปเลยถ้าอยากทำ tham pai loei tha yak tham

Examples of so be it in a sentence

  • If the people choose one, a Democrat, then so be it.2009 February 22, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, via ABC:
  • He once said: "He (Deng Xiaoping) took over and said, "If I have to shoot 200,000 students to save China from another 100 years of disorder, so be it."2014 October 10, Diane M. Francis, “Why Does China Get To Renege on Its Promise of Democracy in Hong Kong?”, in HuffPost:

Synonyms of so be it

9 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of so be it

Origin of so be it

Attested since late Old English.

Questions about so be it

What does so be it mean?
So be it means an indication of acceptance, especially of a situation which is not entirely favorable.
What is so be it in Hindi?
So be it in Hindi is तथास्तु (tathāstu). See So be it meaning in Hindi.
How do you use so be it in a sentence?
If the people choose one, a Democrat, then so be it.
What part of speech is so be it?
So be it is a phrase.

Words near so be it in the dictionary

  1. so
  2. so and so
  3. so and sos
  4. so as
  5. so as to
  6. so be it
  7. so called
  8. so crazy it just might work
  9. so crazy it might just work
  10. so far
  11. so far as

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: so be it (page history and authors); తథాస్తు (Telugu) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-so be it.ogg.

Cite this entry: “so be it.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/so_be_it. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.