Word.ws English Dictionary

softened the blow

softened the blow is the simple past and past participle of soften the blow.

Meaning of soften the blow

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

Questions about softened the blow

What is softened the blow the simple past and past participle of?
Softened the blow is the simple past and past participle of soften the blow.

Words near softened the blow in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: softened the blow (page history and authors); 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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