Search the Dictionary

The act of whispering; a whisper; a murmur. De Quincey. The soft susurrus and sighs of the branches. Longfellow.

Wet, spongy land; soft, low ground saturated with water, but not usually covered with it; marshy ground away from the seashore. Gray swamps and pools, waste places of the hern. Tennyson. A swamp differs from a bog and a marsh in producing trees and shrubs, while the latter produce only herbage, plants, and mosses. Farm…

The down, or fine, soft feathers, of the swan, used on various articles of dress.

A species of soft flannel, thick and warm.

Soft, like fruit too ripe; swashy. [Prov. Eng.] Pegge.

Soft, like fruit that is too ripe; quashy; swash. [Prov. Eng.]

Pleasing to the ear; soft; melodious; harmonious; as, the sweet notes of a flute or an organ; sweet music; a sweet voice; a sweet singer. To make his English sweet upon his tongue. Chaucer. A voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful. Hawthorne.

To make mild or kind; to soften; as, to sweeten the temper.

humors in the eye. Sparkling synchysis (Med.), a condition in which the vitreous humor is softened and contains sparkling scales of cholesterin.

urposes of aspiration. It consists of a small cylindrical barrel and piston, or a bulb of soft elastic material, with or without valves, and with a nozzle which is sometimes at the end of a flexible tube; -- used for injecting animal bodies, cleansing wounds, etc. Garden syringe. See Garden.

Flattery; soft phrases. [Slang]

A soft mineral of a soapy feel and a greenish, whitish, or grayish color, usually occurring in foliated masses. It is hydrous silicate of magnesia. Steatite, or soapstone, is a compact granular variety. Indurated talc, an impure, slaty talc, with a nearly compact texture, and greater hardness than common talc; -- calle…

[Obs. or Prov. Eng.] As a hound that, having roused a hart, Although he tappish ne'er so soft. Chapman.

A small carnivorous marsupial (Phascogale penicillata) having long, soft fur, and a very long tail with a tuft of long hairs at the end; -- called also brush-tailed phascogale.

loyed in obtaining it. Coal tar. See in the Vocabulary. -- Mineral tar (Min.), a kind of soft native bitumen. -- Tar board, a strong quality of millboard made from junk and old tarred rope. Knight. -- Tar water. (a) A cold infusion of tar in water, used as a medicine. (b) The ammoniacal water of gas works. -- Wood…

nd kids, for gloves, and the like, by imbuing them with alum, salt, and other agents, for softening and bleaching them.

Yoked in, or as in, a team. [Obs.] Let their teamed fishes softly swim. Spenser.

Any one of several species of small, soft-furred South American monkeys belonging to Callithrix, Chrysothrix, and allied genera; as, the collared teetee (Callithrix torquatus), and the squirrel teetee (Chrysothrix sciurea). Called also pinche, titi, and saimiri. See Squirrel monkey, under Squirrel.

ing; to modify, as by adding some new element; to qualify, as by an ingredient; hence, to soften; to mollify; to assuage; to soothe; to calm. Puritan austerity was so tempered by Dutch indifference, that mercy itself could not have dictated a milder system. Bancroft. Woman! lovely woman! nature made thee To temper man:…

To render temperate; to moderate; to soften; to temper. [Obs.] It inflames temperance, and temperates wrath. Marston.