Word.ws English Dictionary

softening the ground

softening the ground is the present participle and gerund 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

Questions about softening the ground

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

Words near softening the ground in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: softening 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: “softening the ground.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/softening_the_ground. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.