velvet glove
Americannoun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“We’ve got to a point where we can no longer be able to afford the velvet glove diplomacy.”
From Seattle Times • Sep. 16, 2023
Still, within the velvet glove remains an iron fist.
From New York Times • Jan. 13, 2022
A Republican colleague, Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr., once told the Herald that Ms. Meek had “a velvet glove, but sometimes she can have a fist in it. She’s so likable that it’s sometimes disarming.”
From Washington Post • Nov. 29, 2021
After leading with McBride’s iron fist, a union insider said, the group intends to follow up with the velvet glove of more moderate board members.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 26, 2020
The principle of acting frankly demands truth in the hidden parts, rebukes him whose method is "the iron hand in a velvet glove," smites the Machiavelian policy of smiling gently while arranging instruments of death.
From Right Living as a Fine Art A Study of Channing's Symphony as an Outline of the Ideal Life and Character by Hillis, Newell Dwight
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
