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Softened   /sˈɔfənd/   Listen
verb
Soften  v. t.  (past & past part. softened; pres. part. softening)  To make soft or more soft. Specifically:
(a)
To render less hard; said of matter. "Their arrow's point they soften in the flame."
(b)
To mollify; to make less fierce or intractable. "Diffidence conciliates the proud, and softens the severe."
(c)
To palliate; to represent as less enormous; as, to soften a fault.
(d)
To compose; to mitigate; to assuage. "Music can soften pain to ease."
(e)
To make calm and placid. "All that cheers or softens life."
(f)
To make less harsh, less rude, less offensive, or less violent, or to render of an opposite quality. "He bore his great commision in his look, But tempered awe, and softened all he spoke."
(g)
To make less glaring; to tone down; as, to soften the coloring of a picture.
(h)
To make tender; to make effeminate; to enervate; as, troops softened by luxury.
(i)
To make less harsh or grating, or of a quality the opposite; as, to soften the voice.



Soften  v. i.  To become soft or softened, or less rude, harsh, severe, or obdurate.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Softened" Quotes from Famous Books



... to detect the cause. Accustomed to an elaborate sophistication, the singular union of refinement and nature caught his fancy; for the English seldom see the last separated from vulgarity; and when it is found, softened by a high intelligence and polished manners, it has usually great attractions for ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... admiration for the worn, haggard man, whose character they had so mistaken, never dreaming what depths of patient, all-enduring tenderness were hidden beneath his rough exterior. Even Ellen Tiffton was softened, and forgetting the Ladies' Fair, rode daily over to Spring Bank, ostensibly to inquire after 'Lina, but really to speak a kindly word to Hugh, to whom she felt she had done a wrong. How long those fevers ran, and Hugh ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... Cambridge and Lincolnshire was a region of monasteries. Here were the great abbeys of Peterborough and Croyland and Ely minster. One of the earliest English songs tells how the savage heart of the Danish {16} king Cnut was softened by the singing of the ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... in solution is precipitated by boiling. If the water be used cold, its hardness must be neutralised at the expense of soap, before it will give a lather. These are serious objections to the use of chalk-water in London. But they are successfully met by the fact that such water can be softened inexpensively, and on a grand scale. I had long known the method of softening water called Clark's process, but not until recently, under the guidance of Mr. Homersham, did I see proof of its larger applications. The chalk-water is softened for the supply of the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... slowly, in a more softened tone, though the hard lines around the firm mouth never relaxed, and the cold eyes regarded me with a fixed, relentless gaze. 'No, I do not. Here, with none to overhear us, I will tell you truly that I ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock


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