Word.ws English Dictionary

soft a

soft a noun: the schwa at the end of the African-American Vernacular English word nigga, as contrasted with the hard r at the end of the word nigger when spoken with a General American accent (which is considered very offensive).

Noun

soft a (plural soft a's)

  1. (US, informal) The schwa at the end of the African-American Vernacular English word nigga, as contrasted with the hard r at the end of the word nigger when spoken with a General American accent (which is considered very offensive).
    • First and foremost / You are under no circumstances / Ever permitted / To say the n-word / I don't care if it's soft a or hard r2016 May 5, MItchell Joseph Sewell, Standpoint: Black Queer Southern Revelations, University of South Carolina - Columbia, Senior Theses. 87, page 45; Tips for a Successful Interracial Relationship
    • Opinions will continue to differ about the N-word — does pronunciation that ends in a soft “a” versus a hard “r” make a difference?2022 January 7, John McWhorter, “Opinion: I Can’t Brook the Idea of Banning ‘Negro’”, in The New York Times

Forms of soft a

pluralsoft a's

Questions about soft a

What does soft a mean?
Soft a means the schwa at the end of the African-American Vernacular English word nigga, as contrasted with the hard r at the end of the word nigger when spoken with a General American accent (which is considered very offensive).
What part of speech is soft a?
Soft a is a noun.
What is the plural of soft a?
The plural of soft a is soft a's.

Words near soft a in the dictionary

  1. Sofronio Española
  2. SOFs
  3. soft
  4. soft 404
  5. soft 404s
  6. soft a
  7. soft a's
  8. soft as a baby's bottom
  9. soft as silk
  10. soft atheism
  11. soft atheist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: soft a (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “soft a.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/soft_a. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.