soft

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: sŏft, IPA^(key): /sɒft/
  • (Conservative RP) IPA^(key): /sɔːft/
• (General American) enPR: sôft, IPA^(key): /sɔft/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /sɑft/, enPR: sŏft

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• (Southern US, obsolete) enPR: săft, IPA^(key): /sæft/^[1]
• Rhymes: -ɒft

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.

soft (comparative softer, superlative softest)

1. Easily giving way under pressure.

   My head sank easily into the soft pillow.

   • 2007 September 9, Sara Dickerman, “Olympic Dinners”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     My favorite Greek cheese is the creamy, sheepy manouri: delicately scented and almost spreadable, it’s like a softer, pudgier feta.

   • 2010, Robert Beeman, No More Time for Sorrow, page 133:

     […] 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 […]

2. (of cloth or similar material) Smooth and flexible; not rough, rugged, or harsh.

   Polish the silver with a soft cloth to avoid scratching.

   soft silk; a soft skin

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 11:8:

     They that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses.

4. (of a sound) Quiet.

   I could hear the soft rustle of the leaves in the trees.

   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:

     Her voice was ever soft, / Gentle, and low, — an excellent thing in woman.

5. Gentle.

   There was a soft breeze blowing.

   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:

     I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward's; / Or Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine.

   • c. 1533, William Tyndale, An exposicion upon of Mathew:

     The meek or soft shall inherit the earth.

6. Expressing gentleness or tenderness; mild; conciliatory; courteous; kind.

   soft eyes

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 15:1:

     A soft answer turneth away wrath.

   • 1815, William Wordsworth, To a Highland Girl:

     A face with gladness overspread, / Soft smiles, by human kindness bred.

7. Gentle in action or motion; easy.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     On her soft axle, white she paces even, / And bears thee soft with the smooth air along.

8. Weak in character; impressible.
   • 1665, Joseph Glanvill, Scepsis Scientifica: Or, Confest Ignorance, the Way to Science; […], London: […] E. C[otes] for Henry Eversden […], →OCLC:

     The deceiver soon found this soft place of Adam's.

9. Requiring little or no effort; easy.
   • 1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Beach of Falesá:

     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.

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.

12. (phonetics) Voiced; sonant; lenis.
    • 1954, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings:

      DH represents the voiced (soft) th of English these clothes.

13. (phonetics, rare) Voiceless.
14. (Slavic, phonology) Palatalized.
15. (slang) Lacking strength or resolve; not tough, wimpy.

    When it comes to drinking, he is as soft as they come.

    • 1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 31:

      ‘Going soft on me, Jack?’ ‘You know I’m not.’ ‘Then why all the fuss and blow?’

    • 2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Prison Ship Purgatory:

      Warden Kuril: Every day I see the worst sapient life has to offer. Governments are soft, unwilling to make the hard choices.
      Warden Kuril: Someone had to stand up and make the galaxy safe.

16. (of water) Low in dissolved calcium compounds.

    You won't need as much soap, as the water here is very soft.

17. (UK, colloquial) Foolish.
    • 1621, Robert Burton, The Essential Anatomy of Melancholy:

      He made soft fellows stark noddies, and such as were foolish quite mad.

18. (physics) Of a ferromagnetic material; a material that becomes essentially non-magnetic when an external magnetic field is removed, a material with a low magnetic coercivity. (compare hard)
19. (of a person) Physically or emotionally weak.
20. (UK, of a man) Effeminate.
    • 1650, Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living:

      A longing after sensual pleasures is a dissolution of the spirit of a man, and makes it loose, soft, and wandering.

21. Agreeable to the senses.

    a soft liniment

    soft wines

    • 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

      the soft, delicious air

22. Not harsh or offensive to the sight; not glaring or jagged; pleasing to the eye.

    soft colours

    the soft outline of the snow-covered hill

    • 1673, Edward Browne, A Brief Account of some Travels in Hungaria, Styria, Bulgaria, Thessaly, Austria, Serbia, Carynthia, Carniola, and Friuli:

      The sun, shining upon the upper part of the clouds […] made the softest lights imaginable.

23. (photography, of light) Made up of nonparallel rays, tending to wrap around a subject and produce diffuse shadows.
24. Incomplete, or temporary; not a full action.

    The admin imposed a soft ban on the user.

    Messages removed by soft deletion can be recovered if necessary.

25. (computing) Emulated with software; not physically real.

    Press the red button on the soft phone to hang up.

26. (of a drug) Not likely to cause addiction.
27. (of a drink) Not containing alcohol.
28. Easy-going, lenient, not strict; permissive.

    soft on crime

29. (finance) Of a market: having more supply than demand; being a buyer's market.

    Antonym: hard

    • 1995, U.S. Housing Market Conditions, page 45:

      Overall the rental market is soft and multifamily permit activity is almost nonexistent.

30. (of pornography) Softcore.
31. Of paper: unsized.
32. Of silk: having the natural gum cleaned or washed off.
33. Of coal: bituminous, as opposed to anthracitic.
34. Of weather: warm enough to melt ice; thawing.

• (giving way under pressure): see Thesaurus:soft
• (of a cloth): non-abrasive, fluffy
• (gentle): gentle, light, nesh
• (of a sound): quiet
• (lacking strength or resolve): meek, mild, wimpy, nesh
• (foolish): daft, foolish, silly, stupid

• (antonym(s) of “giving way under pressure”): hard, resistant, solid, stony
• (antonym(s) of “of a cloth”): abrasive, scratchy
• (antonym(s) of “gentle”): harsh, rough, strong
• (antonym(s) of “acute”): hard
• (antonym(s) of “of a sound”): loud
• (antonym(s) of “lacking strength or resolve”): firm, strict, tough
• (antonym(s) of “of water”): hard
• (antonym(s) of “foolish”): sensible

• mollify

soft

1. (archaic) Be quiet; hold; stop; not so fast.
   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:

     Soft, you; a word or two before you go.
     But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

soft (plural softs)

1. A soft or foolish person; an idiot.
   • 1859, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter 9, in Adam Bede […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book first:

     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.

2. (motor racing) Ellipsis of soft tyre. (A tyre whose compound is softer than mediums, and harder than supersofts.)
3. (colloquial) A soft sound or part of a sound.
   • 2012, Sam McGuire, Paul Lee, The Video Editor's Guide to Soundtrack Pro, page 103:

     The expander doesn't really make the louds louder and the softs softer in one step […]

4. (computing, dated, nonstandard, rare) A piece of software.
   • December 1989, Electronic Gaming Monthly:

     Sega and third-party licensees are set to release an abundance of softs that range from intense shooters to sports to reflex-testers.

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

soft (comparative more soft, superlative most soft)

1. (obsolete) Softly; without roughness or harshness; gently; quietly.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 9:

     A Knight soft ryding towards them they spyde

   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter II, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0091:

     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.

• TOFs, FOTs

Borrowed from English soft(ware).

soft m inan

1. (colloquial) software, program
   • 18 March 1999, CD-R 74min X 80min, Group cz.comp.ibmpc:

     Zajimalo by mne, zda jsou tyto CD schopna pracovat na plnou kapacitu s normalnimi vypalovackami a beznym softem nebo je na ne potreba mit extra vypalovadlo i soft?

   • 19 March 2009, Zalohovaci SW, Group cz.talk:

     Pokud těch dat máte víc, pak tím TARem stačí zálohovat základ systému a zbytek řešit zálohovacím softem, kterej umí dělit archiv na několik pásek.

   • 2 April 2010, gsm modul / telefon, Group cz.comp.linux:

     ma nekdo nejake zkusenosti s takovym zarizenim ci softem kterym to ovladat?

• “soft”, in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu (in Czech)
• “soft”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989
• “soft”, in Internetová jazyková příručka (in Czech)

Borrowed from English soft.

• IPA^(key): /sɔft/

• Audio:

  (file)

soft m (plural softs)

1. (sexuality) soft porn
2. (computing, uncountable) software
3. (computing, countable) a piece of software

soft (plural softs)

1. softcore (pornography)

Unadapted borrowing from English soft.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɔft/^[1]
• Rhymes: -ɔft
• Hyphenation: sòft

soft (invariable)

1. soft (tone etc.; temporary (computing))

Borrowed from English software.

soft n (plural softuri)

1. software

From English soft.

soft (comparative softare, superlative softast)

1. (slang) nice and/or laid-back; chill

   Antonym: osoft

   en soft snubbe

   a chill guy

   Det ska bli riktigt soft med några dagar ledigt

   It's gonna be real chill to have a few days off

   Soft att du klarade provet!

   Nice that you passed the test!

• softa

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