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say it: sahft
soft is an adjective and adverb meaning "yielding readily to pressure or weight". It is pronounced /ˈsɑft/ — sahft. It carries 20 recorded senses.
yielding readily to pressure or weight
(used chiefly as a direction or description in music) soft; in a quiet, subdued tone
“the piano passages in the composition”
(of a commodity or market or currency) falling or likely to fall in value
“the market for computers is soft”
using evidence not readily amenable to experimental verification or refutation
“soft data”
“the soft sciences”
tolerant or lenient
“indulgent parents risk spoiling their children”
“too soft on the children”
“they are soft on crime”
willing to negotiate and compromise
in a relaxed manner; or without hardship
“just wanted to take it easy”
“the judge went easy on the young defendant”
colloquialism
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for soft come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.