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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 the sergeant's entreaties. Aggie was no trouble in the house, which she brightened with her childish laughter and merry talk; and her companionship, James's mother could not but think, did the boy much good. It softened his manner, and, although he still often went out with the fishermen, he was no longer thrown entirely for companionship upon the ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... called to my wife: "Come out and see Louis." Some one had told her that they were going to hang me; and I shall never forget her looks as she came out in the road to bid me good-by. One of the soldiers was softened by her agony, and whispered to her: "Don't cry, aunty, we are not going to hang him—we will only put him in jail." I saw this changed my wife's looks in a minute. I said a few words to her, and, with a prayer for ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes

... looked while the east flamed like a burning Rome, and then the glow softened and paled and dissolved in mysteries and miracles of color, in tender rose and exquisite shell pinks, in amethysts and violets and limpid, delicate, fair greens. All about them the sands were turning to gold, and the ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... his task and studied the face of his friend: fatigue and happiness had softened the serious lines that had given the Major an appearance of ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... deadly pale, so that by contrast his queer red hair looked almost scarlet. But he was smiling and altogether at ease. He had made up his mind, and he saw his best policy quite plain in front of him like a white road. His best chance was to make a softened and ambiguous speech, such as would leave on the detective's mind the impression that the anarchist brotherhood was a very mild affair after all. He believed in his own literary power, his capacity for suggesting fine shades and picking perfect words. He thought that with ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton


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