Word.ws English Dictionary

soften the ground

soften the ground verb: to prepare or create favorable conditions (for something), especially with the intent of improving public acceptance of the forthcoming occurrence.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, often) To prepare or create favorable conditions (for something), especially with the intent of improving public acceptance of the forthcoming occurrence.
    • A steady rhythm of leaks and informed speculation prepared America for the President's Lewinsky confessional. . . . "The leaks definitely softened the ground for Clinton," says TIME White House correspondent Jay Branegan.1998 August 18, Tony Karon, “Who Knew?”, in Time, retrieved 02 Feb 2016
    • Bowen and the prime minister began to soften the ground for the tobacco tax hike on Wednesday in separate events in Sydney and Brisbane.2013 July 31, Katharine Murphy, “Australia: Tobacco tax expected to raise more than $5bn”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 02 Feb 2016

Forms of soften the ground

third-person singular presentsoftens the ground
present participlesoftening the ground
past participlesoftened the ground
pastsoftened the ground
alternative formsoften up the ground

Questions about soften the ground

What does soften the ground mean?
Soften the ground means to prepare or create favorable conditions (for something), especially with the intent of improving public acceptance of the forthcoming occurrence.
What part of speech is soften the ground?
Soften the ground is a verb.
What is the past tense of soften the ground?
The past tense of soften the ground is softened the ground.

Words near soften the ground in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: soften the ground (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 ground.ogg.

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