Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Users Search
Help Dashboard Sign In Sign Up
Q&A Resources Meta
Q&A
Posts Tags Edits
Ask Question

How did 'the better to —' semantically shift to mean 'So as to — better'?

+3
−1

I screenshot Collins and Lexico.

Image alt text

Let's treat this like a math problem. How exactly does "the better to —" = 'So as to — better'? Please show all steps between these two expressions.

etymology
posted over 5 years ago
user card
PSTH‭
-57 reputation 86 3 -114 174
History

1 comment thread

General comments (2 comments)

Sign up to answer this question »