Word.ws English Dictionary

softening the blow

softening the blow is the present participle and gerund 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 softening the blow

What is softening the blow the present participle and gerund of?
Softening the blow is the present participle and gerund of soften the blow.

Words near softening the blow in the dictionary

  1. softeners
  2. softenest
  3. softeneth
  4. softening
  5. softening someone's cough
  6. softening the blow
  7. softening the ground
  8. softening up
  9. softening up the ground
  10. softeningly
  11. softenings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: softening 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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