(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.
Undermine
Definition:
(v. t.) To excavate the earth beneath, or the part of, especially for the purpose of causing to fall or be overthrown; to form a mine under; to sap; as, to undermine a wall.
(v. t.) Fig.: To remove the foundation or support of by clandestine means; to ruin in an underhand way; as, to undermine reputation; to undermine the constitution of the state.
Example Sentences:
(1) Their efforts will include blocking the NSA from undermining encryption and barring other law enforcement agencies from collecting US data in bulk.
(2) And any Labour commitment on spending is fatally undermined by their deficit amnesia.” Davey widened the attack on the Tories, following a public row this week between Clegg and Theresa May over the “snooper’s charter”, by accusing his cabinet colleague Eric Pickles of coming close to abusing his powers by blocking new onshore developments against the wishes of some local councils.
(3) Chadwick felt that Customs and Trading Standards needed to continue their war on illegal tobacco – if not, efforts to tackle smoking could be undermined.
(4) But for decades now there has been a systematic undermining of it [the NHS’s] core values.
(5) The government also faced considerable international political pressure, with the United Nations' special rapporteur on torture, Juan Méndez, calling publicly on the government to "provide full redress to the victims, including fair and adequate compensation", and writing privately to David Cameron, along with two former special rapporteurs, to warn that the government's position was undermining its moral authority across the world.
(6) Like the doctor who makes a decision to operate without consulting the patient, I’m diminishing your autonomy by undermining it.
(7) There, the US Joint Commission, an independent, non-profit organisation that accredits healthcare organisations and programmes has issued a standard on “behaviours that undermine a culture of safety” to tackle “intimidating and disruptive behaviour at work”.
(8) Group B meningococcal vaccine consisting of the natural complex of specific polysaccharide and outer membrane protein (OMP) has been shown to be moderately reactogenic, safe with respect to the effect of undermining tolerance to human brain tissue antigens and to produce no allergization of humans.
(9) The end of the cold war and a reshaping of the threats faced by the UK had undermined the logic of nuclear deterrence strategy, he said.
(10) Then Greece has another chance.” But the intervention by the IMF will undermine EU leaders who argue Greece must submit to a fresh round of austerity measures to release funds for debt repayments.
(11) Entitled Jobs, Justice and Equity, the report warned that growing inequality, marginalisation and disenfranchisement are threatening Africa's prospects and undermining the foundations of its recent success.
(12) Umunna said: "Where you have pay awards that bear no relation to performance, but also can be beyond what a company can sustain, it really undermines trust in the whole system.
(13) The home team's defence had been undermined by naivety and it was in evidence when Stepanov, already on a yellow card for a foul on McGeady and having been played into trouble, lunged for the ball only to be beaten to it by Keane.
(14) The home secretary has been concerned that British involvement in the UN refugee programme would become an open-ended commitment that risked undermining the Tories' commitment to reduce net migration to the UK to tens of thousands by 2015.
(15) The Public Accounts committee (PAC) said on Thursday that the "chaos" surrounding the failure of G4S to provide enough staff for the Olympics had undermined confidence in Games organisers.
(16) Moreover, uncertainty about the resolution of these fiscal issues could itself undermine business and household confidence," said Bernanke.
(17) The clashes between the moralistic Levin and his friend Oblonsky, sometimes affectionate, sometimes angry, and Levin's linkage of modernity to Oblonsky's attitudes – that social mores are to be worked around and subordinated to pleasure, that families are base camps for off-base nooky – undermine one possible reading of Anna Karenina , in which Anna is a martyr in the struggle for the modern sexual freedoms that we take for granted, taken down by the hypocritical conservative elite to which she, her lover and her husband belong.
(18) James Cleverly, MP for Braintree, who supported Johnson’s aborted leadership bid before backing May, said joking about him risked undermining the foreign secretary.
(19) These effects of governmental restrictions on abortion do indeed interfere with the obstetrician's basic goal of providing optimal care for the patient and undermine their efforts to improve maternal and infant health.
(20) Poor crossing undermined Liverpool in the first leg, Klopp had claimed, but the flaw was remedied quickly in the return.