Meaning

noun erect bushy hairy annual herb having trifoliate leaves and purple to pink flowers; extensively cultivated for food and forage and soil improvement but especially for its nutritious oil-rich seeds; nat

noun the most highly proteinaceous vegetable known; the fruit of the soybean plant is used in a variety of foods and as fodder (especially as a replacement for animal protein)

originBorrowed 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”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0