- soft´ly
- soft «sft, soft», adjective, adverb, noun, interjection.–adj.1. a) not hard; yielding readily to touch or pressure: »
a soft tomato, soft ground, a soft bed.
b) easily bent without breaking; not stiff; flexible: »Oil keeps leather soft.
SYNONYM(S): pliable. c) capable of being hammered or pressed into various shapes without being broken; malleable: »soft iron. Copper and lead are softer than steel.
2. not hard compared with other things of the same kind: »Pine wood is softer than oak. Chalk is much softer than granite.
4. fine in texture; pleasant to the touch; not rough or coarse; smooth: »a soft skin, the soft hair of a kitten, soft silk.
5. not loud; quiet; subdued: »a soft tap on the door, to speak in a soft voice, to play soft music. The soft rustle of a maiden's gown (Keats).
SYNONYM(S): low.6. quietly pleasant; calm; mild: »a soft breeze. The soft airs that o'er the meadows play (William Cullen Bryant).
7. Figurative. not glaring or harsh: »soft colors, a soft light.
8. Figurative. gentle; kind; tender: »a soft heart. He…was very soft and gentle with the children (Thackeray). He was fond of saying soft things which were intended to have no meaning (Anthony Trollope).
SYNONYM(S): sympathetic, compassionate.9. Figurative. not strong or robust; weak; unmanly: »muscles which have grown soft from lack of use. He became soft from idleness and luxury.
10. Figurative. silly: »soft in the head.
12. comparatively free from certain mineral salts that prevent soap from forming suds: »Soft water is easy to wash with. Rain water contains no dissolved solid matter and so is soft (Clifford Cook Furnas).
13. Phonetics. a) having a more or less hissing sound; pronounced as a fricative or an affricate, rather than as a stop. Example: C is soft in city and hard in corn; g is soft in gentle and hard in get. b) (of Slavic consonants) palatalized. c) = lenis. (Cf. ↑lenis) d) = voiced. (Cf. ↑voiced)14. Physics. of or having to do with radiation that has low powers of penetration, such as X rays.15. of or having to do with soft goods: »For many years the chain sold soft lines—clothing—only on a limited basis (Wall Street Journal).
16. having to do with or characteristic of soft art: »... half a dozen “soft” (i.e., psychologically or technically tentative) paintings, those by Rivers, Copley, Kitaj, Rosenquist, Dine, Oldenburg (Harold Rosenberg).
17. having little contrast between light and shade: »a soft photographic print or negative.
18. (of wheat) containing little gluten: »soft wheat.
19. Military. not protected against missiles or bombs: »Hardened silos require a huge weight of explosives for their destruction. By contrast, our Minuteman is designed…for retaliatory strikes on “soft” targets (Time).
–adv.in a soft manner; quietly; gently: »The wanderer…Halts on the bridge to hearken How soft the poplar sighs (A. E. Housman).
–n.that which is soft; soft part.–interj.Archaic. hush! stop!╂[Old English sōfte]–soft´ly, adverb.
Useful english dictionary. 2012.
