soft

Easily giving way under pressure.

Adjective

  1. Easily giving way under pressure.
    • My head sank easily into the soft pillow.
    • My favorite Greek cheese is the creamy, sheepy manouri: delicately scented and almost spreadable, it’s like a softer, pudgier feta. - 2007 September 9, Sara Dickerman, “Olympic Dinners”, in The New York Times, archived...
    • […] Category Two implement hitches and doubled high-traction agricultural tires hung four to each massive rear axle to breast the steepest, softest dune or guckiest swamp […] - 2010, Robert Beeman, No More Time for...

    Antonyms: hard resistant solid stony

  2. Smooth and flexible; not rough, rugged, or harsh.
    • Polish the silver with a soft cloth to avoid scratching.
    • soft silk; a soft skin
    • They that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 11:8:

    Synonyms: fluffy non-abrasive

    Antonyms: abrasive scratchy

  3. Quiet.
    • I could hear the soft rustle of the leaves in the trees.
    • Her voice was ever soft, / Gentle, and low, — an excellent thing in woman. - c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First...

    Synonyms: quiet

    Antonyms: loud

  4. Gentle.
    • There was a soft breeze blowing.
    • I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward's; / Or Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine. - c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies,...
    • The meek or soft shall inherit the earth. - c. 1533, William Tyndale, An exposicion upon of Mathew:

    Synonyms: gentle light nesh

    Antonyms: harsh rough strong

  5. Expressing gentleness or tenderness; mild; conciliatory; courteous; kind.
    • soft eyes
    • A soft answer turneth away wrath. - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 15:1:
    • A face with gladness overspread, / Soft smiles, by human kindness bred. - 1815, William Wordsworth, To a Highland Girl:
  6. Gentle in action or motion; easy.
    • On her soft axle, white she paces even, / And bears thee soft with the smooth air along. - 1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […];...
  7. Limp, weak.
  8. Weak in character; impressible.
    • The deceiver soon found this soft place of Adam's. - 1665, Joseph Glanvill, Scepsis Scientifica: Or, Confest Ignorance, the Way to Science; […], London: […] E. C[otes] for Henry Eversden […], →OCLC:
  9. Requiring little or no effort; easy.
    • Before that they had been a good deal on the move, trekking about after the white man, who was one of those rolling stones that keep going round after a soft job. - 1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Beach of Falesá:
  10. Not bright or intense.
    • soft lighting
  11. Having a slight angle from straight.
    • At the intersection with two roads going left, take the soft left.
    • It's important to dance on soft knees to avoid injury.

    Synonyms: acute

    Antonyms: hard

  12. Voiced; sonant; lenis.
    • DH represents the voiced (soft) th of English these clothes. - 1954, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings:

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sem- Proto-Germanic *samþuz /*samftuz Proto-Germanic *-jaz Proto-West Germanic *-ī Proto-West Germanic *samft(ī) Old English sōfte Middle English softe English soft From Middle English softe, from Old English sōfte, alteration of earlier sēfte (“soft”), from Proto-West Germanic *samft(ī) (“level, even, smooth, soft, gentle”) (compare *sōmiz (“agreeable, fitting”)), from Proto-Indo-European *semptio-, *semtio-, from *sem- (“one, whole”). Cognate with West Frisian sêft (“gentle; soft”), Dutch zacht (“soft”), German Low German sacht (“soft”), German sanft (“soft, yielding”), Old Norse sœmr (“agreeable, fitting”), samr (“same”). More at seem, same.

Forms

softer softest

Synonyms

cushiony flabby flaccid flexible soft spongy mellow malleable moldable pliable tender yielding zate

Antonyms

firm hard resistant solid stony unyielding

Hyponyms

doughy downy flocculent foamy spumescent

Related

mollify

Derived

airsoft failsoft hypersoft mallsoft nonsoft oversoft semisoft Softail softback softbacked softball softbill softbilled softboard softbottom softbound softbox softboy softcoat softcock softcode softcover softcovered soften

Adverb

  1. Softly; without roughness or harshness; gently; quietly.
    • A Knight soft ryding towards them they spyde - 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 9:
    • There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls. - 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes,...

Origin

From Middle English softe, from Old English sōfte (“softly”), from Proto-West Germanic *samftō (“softly”).

Forms

more soft most soft

Interjection

  1. Be quiet; hold; stop; not so fast.
    • Soft you; a word or two before you goe: / I haue done the State ſome ſeruice, and they know’t: / No more of that. - c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in...
    • But ſoft, what light through yonder window breaks? - c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio),...

Noun

  1. A soft-headed or foolish person; an idiot.
    • It'll do you no good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own, if you've got a soft to drive you: he'll soon turn you over into the ditch. - 1859, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter 9, in Adam Bede […], volume...
  2. A soft drink.
    • Artois' story with water and softs was embodied in the difficult relationship between Raymond Boon and Spa's main owner and CEO, Guy du Bois. - 2019, Kenneth Bertrams, Julien Del Marmol, Sander Geerts, Becoming the...
  3. A tyre whose compound is softer than mediums, and harder than supersofts.
  4. A soft sound or part of a sound.
    • The expander doesn't really make the louds louder and the softs softer in one step […] - 2012, Sam McGuire, Paul Lee, The Video Editor's Guide to Soundtrack Pro, page 103:
  5. A piece of software.
    • Sega and third-party licensees are set to release an abundance of softs that range from intense shooters to sports to reflex-testers. - December 1989, Electronic Gaming Monthly
  6. Banknotes.
    • At the end of the two years and a half I got into the way of forged Bank-of-England notes. A man I knew in the course of business, said, ‘I would cut that game of ‘smatter-hauling,’ (stealing handkerchiefs), and do a...
    • Putting his mouth to my ear, he whispered hoarsely. "Do you want to buy any queer soft?" […] In my dream I had been haunted by a counterfeiter, vulgarly called "a smasher." - 1876, The Guernsey Magazine, volume 4:

Forms

softs