Word.ws English Dictionary

soften up the ground

soften up the ground is the alternative form of soften the ground.

Meaning of soften the ground

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

Forms of soften up the ground

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

Questions about soften up the ground

What is soften up the ground the alternative form of?
Soften up the ground is the alternative form of soften the ground.

Words near soften up the ground in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: soften up the ground (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “soften up the ground.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/soften_up_the_ground. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.