Proceeding to the midst he stil did stand, / As if in minde he somewhat had to say ….
Robert Trail
But this text and theme I am upon, relates to somewhat far higher and greater, than all the beholdings of his glory that ever any saint on earth received.
1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Mr Jones had somewhat about him, which, though I think writers are not thoroughly agreed in its name, doth certainly inhabit some human breasts (..)
1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune's favourites sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out.
More or less; a certain quantity or degree; a part, more or less; something.
Grew
These salts have somewhat of a nitrous taste.
Dryden
Somewhat of his good sense will suffer, in this transfusion, and much of the beauty of his thoughts will be lost.
A person or thing of importance; a somebody.
Tennyson
Here come those that worship me. / They think that I am somewhat.
(w)
Pity that the researchful notary has not either told us in what century, and of what history, he was a writer, or been simply content to depose, that Lollius, if a writer of that name existed at all, was a somewhat somewhere.