Word.ws English Dictionary

soften the blow

soften the blow verb: to reduce the negative impact of something.

Verb

soften the blow (third-person singular simple present softens the blow, present participle softening the blow, simple past and past participle softened the blow)

  1. (figuratively) To reduce the negative impact of something.
    • 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, […]2014, Noah-Jay Michael, Mastering Conversational Hypnosis: Learn the Principles of Hypnotic Language Patterns, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 52
    • 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.2015, Cindy Sanford, Letters to a Lifer: The Boy ‘Never to be Released’, Waterside Press, →ISBN, page 181

Synonyms of soften the blow

Forms of soften the blow

third-person singular presentsoftens the blow
present participlesoftening the blow
past participlesoftened the blow
pastsoftened the blow

Questions about soften the blow

What does soften the blow mean?
Soften the blow means to reduce the negative impact of something.
What part of speech is soften the blow?
Soften the blow is a verb.
What is the past tense of soften the blow?
The past tense of soften the blow is softened the blow.

Words near soften the blow in the dictionary

  1. softdelete
  2. softdrink
  3. softdrinks
  4. soften
  5. soften someone's cough
  6. soften the blow
  7. soften the ground
  8. soften up
  9. soften up the ground
  10. softenable
  11. softened

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: soften the blow (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-soften the blow.ogg.

Cite this entry: “soften the blow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/soften_the_blow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.