soften

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English softenen, also softnen,^[2][3] formed from English soft + -en.^[4][5][6][3] It replaced an earlier verb soft, to make soft, recorded from the early 13th century and now obsolete, perhaps last used by Spenser.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To appease a person, to lessen the strength of their feeling: before 1382, in the early version of the Wycliffite Bible.^[4] Etymonline gives the late 14th century, with the sense to mitigate or diminish sorrow.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The figurative senses came first: soothing a person or a feeling (before 1382), and then, about 1410, making something less harsh, intense or prominent, or easier to bear.^[4][5] The physical sense, to make or become soft, is recorded from about 1425, among others in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's surgery,^[4][2][5] and in 1727 the verb was used of making water soft.^[4] From 1576 it could be disparaging, to make a person weak or self-indulgent, and after 1579 also to make something more delicate or refined.^[4][6] Johnson (1755) gave first "to make soft; to make less hard", then "to intenerate", to make less fierce or obstinate.^[7] The military soften up, to weaken defences by bombing before an attack, is recorded from 1940,^[5] and was soon applied to wearing down a person's resistance.^[6] In Scots and West Yorkshire dialect soften also meant to thaw.^[8]

Timeline

• before 1382 – to appease a person, to lessen the strength of their feeling.^[4]
• c. 1410 – to make a feeling less harsh; to make less pronounced or less likely to offend.^[4]
• c. 1425 – to make physically soft; intransitive, to become soft.^[4][2]
• c. 1429 – to make a person more sympathetic or gentle.^[4]
• 1576 – to make weak or self-indulgent.^[4]
• 1727 – to make water soft.^[4]
• 1940 – soften up, to weaken defences by preliminary attack.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make or become soft or softer: Soak the beans overnight to soften them.^[9][10][4]
2. To make or become gentler, milder or more sympathetic: His face softened when he saw the child.^[10][3][4]
3. To make something less harsh, severe or critical: She softened the tone of her reply.^[9][3][4]
4. To make something easier to bear; to mitigate: to soften the blow.^[3][4][6]
5. To make a sound quieter or a colour or outline less sharp.^[6][4]
6. To weaken the strength, morale or resistance of, as of defences by bombing; often soften up.^[9][6][5]
7. To remove the minerals that make water hard.^[4][6]
8. (commerce) Of demand or prices: to weaken or fall.^[10]

Word family

• softener
• oversoften
• resoften
• unsoftening

Related words

• soft

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
9. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins