See soften the blow on Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "softens the blow",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "softening the blow",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "softened the blow",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "softened the blow",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "soften the blow (third-person singular simple present softens the blow, present participle softening the blow, simple past and past participle softened the blow)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English predicates",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2014, Noah-Jay Michael, Mastering Conversational Hypnosis: Learn the Principles of Hypnotic Language Patterns, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 52:",
"text": "Traditionally, people gave a compliment first so it would soften the blow of what was to come after. It does not soften the blow, it fully erases the fact that they ever been complimented because their mind is focused on the last thing they heard, […]",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2015, Cindy Sanford, Letters to a Lifer: The Boy ‘Never to be Released’, Waterside Press, →ISBN, page 181:",
"text": "In prison there are no loved ones to soften the blow of such terrible news. I hated being the one to tell him, but it was infinitely better than if he got the news from someone he rarely heard from.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022 September 4, Erika Solomon, “Wary of Cold Days and Hot Tempers, Europe’s Leaders Vow Economic Relief”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:",
"text": "European governments moved this weekend to soften the blow of soaring costs and a deepening energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine, and scrambled to prepare for the possibility of social unrest as the days grow colder.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To reduce the negative impact of something."
],
"id": "en-soften_the_blow-en-verb-v20kP0u4",
"links": [
[
"reduce",
"reduce"
],
[
"negative",
"negative"
],
[
"impact",
"impact"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(figuratively) To reduce the negative impact of something."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "sugarcoat the pill"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "cushion the blow"
}
],
"tags": [
"figuratively"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-soften the blow.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c3/En-au-soften_the_blow.ogg/En-au-soften_the_blow.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/En-au-soften_the_blow.ogg"
}
],
"word": "soften the blow"
}
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "softens the blow",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "softening the blow",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "softened the blow",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "softened the blow",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "soften the blow (third-person singular simple present softens the blow, present participle softening the blow, simple past and past participle softened the blow)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "sugarcoat the pill"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English predicates",
"English terms with quotations",
"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2014, Noah-Jay Michael, Mastering Conversational Hypnosis: Learn the Principles of Hypnotic Language Patterns, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 52:",
"text": "Traditionally, people gave a compliment first so it would soften the blow of what was to come after. It does not soften the blow, it fully erases the fact that they ever been complimented because their mind is focused on the last thing they heard, […]",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2015, Cindy Sanford, Letters to a Lifer: The Boy ‘Never to be Released’, Waterside Press, →ISBN, page 181:",
"text": "In prison there are no loved ones to soften the blow of such terrible news. I hated being the one to tell him, but it was infinitely better than if he got the news from someone he rarely heard from.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2022 September 4, Erika Solomon, “Wary of Cold Days and Hot Tempers, Europe’s Leaders Vow Economic Relief”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:",
"text": "European governments moved this weekend to soften the blow of soaring costs and a deepening energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine, and scrambled to prepare for the possibility of social unrest as the days grow colder.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To reduce the negative impact of something."
],
"links": [
[
"reduce",
"reduce"
],
[
"negative",
"negative"
],
[
"impact",
"impact"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(figuratively) To reduce the negative impact of something."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "cushion the blow"
}
],
"tags": [
"figuratively"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-soften the blow.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/c3/En-au-soften_the_blow.ogg/En-au-soften_the_blow.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/En-au-soften_the_blow.ogg"
}
],
"word": "soften the blow"
}
Download raw JSONL data for soften the blow meaning in All languages combined (2.6kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (8a39820 and 4401a4c). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.