(v. t.) To mollify; to make less fierce or intractable.
(v. t.) To palliate; to represent as less enormous; as, to soften a fault.
(v. t.) To compose; to mitigate; to assuage.
(v. t.) To make less harsh, less rude, less offensive, or less violent, or to render of an opposite quality.
(v. t.) To make less glaring; to tone down; as, to soften the coloring of a picture.
(v. t.) To make tender; to make effeminate; to enervate; as, troops softened by luxury.
(v. t.) To make less harsh or grating, or of a quality the opposite; as, to soften the voice.
(v. i.) To become soft or softened, or less rude, harsh, severe, or obdurate.
Example Sentences:
(1) The other trend involved softening from penetrant liquid absorption and a concomitant decrease in hardness.
(2) Golding said the government would not soften its stance on drug trafficking and it intended to use a proportion of revenues from its licensing authority to support a public education campaign to discourage pot-smoking by young people and mitigate public health consequences.
(3) Pathologically, there was diffuse incomplete softening of white matter in all cases.
(4) Aware that her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, a former labour correspondent for the Guardian who understood the range of attitudes within trade unions, had tried to soften the impression that she saw Kinnock as another General Galtieri [Argentina’s president during the Falklands war], the draft text tried to distinguish between unions, rival parties and what the final text (the one she actually delivered) called “an organised revolutionary minority” with their “outmoded Marxist dogma about class warfare”.
(5) Add the onion, cook for three minutes, stirring, until softened, then add the wine, sage, lemon peel, lemon juice and 150ml water.
(6) Welfare cuts are now becoming a matter of life or death | Letters Read more But government sources suggested the political pressures on Osborne, who has been criticised publicly by a series of Tory MPs, suggest he will act more flexibly and direct substantial resources to softening the impact of the cuts.
(7) Moisture on the skin was shown to increase the discharge to a standard stimulus, probably by its softening effect on the stratum corneum.
(8) The importance of R for cervical softening during pregnancy and its interaction with E near term and during parturition are discussed.
(9) He and Cameron have spent the week softening up opinion for huge benefit cuts in next week’s budget , due to focus on tax credits, largely paid to in-work, ”hardworking” families, victims of Britain’s swelling ranks of the under-paid.
(10) The method of aspiration with a standard electric operative aspirator should be used for evacuation of the softened brain matter.
(11) But he also suggested the administration was softening its commitment to the Minsk framework for a deal.
(12) In a casserole over a medium heat, fry the onions in the oil and butter for 5 minutes, to soften.
(13) Its lines soften, its edges fade; it shrinks into the raw cold from the river, more like a shrouded mountain than a castle built for kings.
(14) The wizened fish is hammered with a mallet to soften it so you can pull it off in strips to eat.
(15) The substitution of the softeners with deionisers solved this important and unusual clinical problem.
(16) Softening and elution are not sufficient for constriction, however, since high potassium, 2,4-dinitrophenol, and cyanide inhibited constriction without inhibiting the softening or elution of axoplasm.
(17) Ribotyping patterns of aeromonads recovered from well 1, detention basin, sand filter, softener, and distribution samples were compared with those of the five clinical isolates.
(18) By softening these insects in a detergent solution, however, it is possible to make most observations in the same way as on fresh material.
(19) His and Osborne's post-election "softening up" is returning to haunt them.
(20) But recently, their attitude has softened as they realise the importance of music to the island.
Soothe
Definition:
(a.) To assent to as true.
(a.) To assent to; to comply with; to gratify; to humor by compliance; to please with blandishments or soft words; to flatter.
(a.) To assuage; to mollify; to calm; to comfort; as, to soothe a crying child; to soothe one's sorrows.
Example Sentences:
(1) So I am, of course, intrigued about the city’s newest tourist attraction: a hangover bar, open at weekends, in which sufferers can come in and have a bit of a lie down in soothingly subdued lighting, while sipping vitamin-enriched smoothies.
(2) Estonia had been reduced to 10 men early in the second half yet Hodgson’s men had to toil away for another 25 minutes before the goal, direct from Wayne Rooney’s free-kick, that soothed their mood and maintained their immaculate start to this qualifying programme.
(3) The latter practice has previously been ascribed to imprinting and the soothing sound of the mother's heartbeat on the infant.
(4) Mourinho's gloating will have done little to soothe Tottenham's anger.
(5) One peer, Lord Best, back in the House of Lords debate in 2011 , caught the deep importance of how a home should soothe and protect.
(6) For the past year, she has given the same talk at up to four "home parties" daily, fuelled by little more than coffee and larynx-soothing Malva tea.
(7) His neat nails were polished like pebbles and his voice had a soothing, almost balsamic, tone.
(8) Weirdly, the muffled Doppler effects of several thousand passing SUVs was quite soothing.
(9) Sceptics think Prokhorov will be one of half a dozen "approved" candidates used to soak up discontent with his soothing talk of inexorable change, while posing no real threat to Putin's supremacy.
(10) But that still puts the UK's deficit, at more than 12% of GDP, in line with that of crisis-hit Greece, and the numbers gave new momentum to the increasingly bitter row about what should come first: soothing the concerns of the bond markets with public sector cutbacks, or making sure the economy has recovered before switching off the life-support.
(11) Three precious points appeared to be theirs and they stood not only to crown a fightback that had hardly been trailed, but to soothe the pain of the 6-0 humbling at Chelsea from last Saturday.
(12) Cameron’s EU deal: the verdict from our panel | Matthew d’Ancona, Daniel Hannan, Tom Clark and Natalie Nougayrède Read more There was still a long way to go and the deal was far from sealed, Dave soothingly cajoled, but “what we’ve got is what I basically asked for”.
(13) It is a bit rich to expect us to state exactly how we’ll whip our troops when Cameron himself still can’t come out and say what he’ll do with his own cabinet.” Behind the scenes, “sources close to Corbyn” could usefully soothe pro-European nerves: “As an internationalist party, our inclination is of course to remain within the European family, but it would be irresponsible to declare our hand now, leaving Cameron to barter away British employment rights.” However Corbyn votes himself, it is perfectly plain that he will not have the authority to whip individual Euro-enthusiast MPs to vote against their consciences, so he may as well concede that at once.
(14) The results suggest that, in the presence of variation in feeding practice greater than that which is typical for our society, feeding interval may be a significant factor in early (but not later) crying behavior; furthermore, this effect is independent of and additive to the soothing effect of short response latency.
(15) In the three-minute video, ‘From Candles to Computers: Bringing Electricity to China’s Jing Jin village’, she says: “The coal industry is a major force in eliminating fuel poverty in China but, more importantly, it’s a critical driving force for the phenomenal economic growth China has experienced.” The video comes with a soothing soundtrack of traditional Chinese music, and is beautifully shot.
(16) Particular facets examined include the "soothing" function of medication, the placebo effect, and medication compliance, as well as countertransference difficulties encountered in administering the medicine.
(17) Their encouragement may soothe nervous Republicans but they have conflict of interest issues of their own .
(18) She also took the family's pet rabbit to soothe Hardwick, who had severe learning disabilities and a mental age of about four.
(19) If the prime minister had hoped to soothe old tensions, however, he failed – at least partially.
(20) Being responsible was more helpful to fathers who saw their infant as responding positively to soothing techniques and as smiling and laughing frequently, but less helpful to fathers who perceived their infant as being fearful and distressed by limitations.