soften

Other forms of soften

past tense

softenned·

present participle

softenning·

third person

softens·

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.

Questions about soften

What does soften mean?

soften means "make (images or sounds) soft or softer". That is the primary sense; the word has 7 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in soften?

soften has 2 syllables: sof-ten. The stress falls on "sof". In IPA it is /ˈsɑfən/.

What is another word for soften?

Close synonyms include dampen, damp, weaken, break, yield. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of soften?

The recorded antonyms are sharpen, harden, harden.

Is soften a common word?

soften is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.