Word.ws English Dictionary

soya

/ˈsɔɪ.ə/

soya is the alternative form of soy.

Meaning of soy

Noun (1)

soy (usually uncountable, plural soys)

  1. (usually) A common East Asian liquid sauce, made by subjecting boiled beans to long fermentation and then long digestion in salt and water.
    • I like a little soy with my rice.
    Synonyms:
    soy sauce
  2. (attributive, often, usually) Soybeans, or the protein derived from them.
    • These candles are made from soy.

Noun (2)

soy (uncountable)

  1. (Scotland, archaic) Silk.
    • GILDEROY was a bonnie boy, / Had roſes tull his ſhoone, / His ſtockings were of ſilken ſoy, / Wi' garters hanging doune: […]1765, Thomas Percy, compiler, “Gilderoy”, in Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: […], volume I, London: […] J[ames] Dodsley […], →OCLC, book III, page 300

See all 6 meanings of soy

Origin of soya

Borrowed from Dutch soja; from the Satsuma dialectal Japanese そや (soya), which is the topicalized form of 醤油 (そい, soi) (cognate to standard Japanese 醤油 (しょうゆ, shōyu)), from Late Middle Japanese 醤油 (しやうゆ, shiyauyu), orthographic borrowing from Middle Chinese 醬油 (tsjàng-yuw), from 醬 (tsjangᴴ, “bean paste”) + 油 (“oil”).

Words formed from soya

Phrases with soya

Words that rhyme with soya

Questions about soya

What is soya the alternative form of?
Soya is the alternative form of soy.
How do you pronounce soya?
Soya is pronounced /ˈsɔɪ.ə/.

Words near soya in the dictionary

  1. soy out
  2. soy sauce
  3. soy sauces
  4. soy yogurt
  5. soy yogurts
  6. soya
  7. soya bean
  8. soya beans
  9. soya sauce
  10. soya sauces
  11. soyabean

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: soya (page history and authors); soy (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-soya.wav.

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