soft sell
noun
a method of advertising or selling that is quietly persuasive, subtle, and indirect (opposed to hard sell).
soft sell
1 Americannoun
soft-sell
2
American
[sawft-sel, soft-]
/ ˈsɔftˈsɛl, ˈsɒft- /
verb (used with object)
soft-sold,
soft-selling
adjective
soft sell
British
noun
soft sell
Idioms
Etymology
Origin of soft sell1
First recorded in 1950–55
Origin of soft-sell2
First recorded in 1950–55
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.
See Examples For:
No one takes himself or the subject too seriously in Mr. Scheinfeld’s film; if its arguments are convincing, it’s because of a very soft sell.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 2, 2026
But by sanitizing Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, “The Osbournes” established the architecture for the celebrity soft sell.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2025
And negotiations with the holding companies weren’t exactly a soft sell, with warnings of living in “a war zone” of trucks and construction if they didn’t cooperate.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 28, 2022
Day One of the county's mass homeless project started out as a soft sell.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 22, 2018
It’s a soft sell — Rice’s classroom PowerPoint says that attending “any college,” not just Rice, is what matters.
From New York Times ● Feb. 4, 2015
The leagues are also trying to get in front of children by using influencers as intermediaries and soft-sell salesmen.
From New York Times ● Jan. 12, 2022
Despite the determined statement, the video message was mostly a soft-sell, with smiling students urging their peers to be vaccinated “like me,” as they said, one after another.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 7, 2021
Investors, until now cool to Lagarde's previous soft-sell pushback on the matter, heeded, and pricing for the ECB's next move, a 10 basis point increase, was pushed back from next October to December 2022.
From Reuters ● Nov. 4, 2021
But rising case levels from the delta variant are eroding hope that the nation’s soft-sell “carrot” approach to vaccinations will yield much more progress.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 3, 2021
The long-suffering public went along with billboards and singing commercials; they tolerated half a dozen sales pitches in a half-hour radio or TV show; they suffered stoically through the "hard-sell" and the "soft-sell."
From Get Out of Our Skies! by E. K. Jarvis
Besides carrying the biggest stick in baseball, Mickey Charles Mantle, 29, speaks with a soft-selling voice in the world of advertising.
From Time Magazine Archive
Some of his cur rent campaigns have clearly been influenced by soft-selling Doyle Dane Bernbach, which developed Avis' underdog* theme.
From Time Magazine Archive
The soft-selling, satirical commercial had been tried before, and except for a few engaging specimens such as Bert and Harry Piel of Piel's Beer, had fallen into limbo.
From Time Magazine Archive
David Rockefeller's soft-selling bank has been outdistanced in assets since 1968 by New York's aggressively expansionist First National City Bank.
From Time Magazine Archive
"It's What's Happening, Baby," a top-talent rock 'n' roll show with Disk Jockey "Murray the K." soft-selling economic opportunities to the nation's high school dropouts and jobless teenagers.
From Time Magazine Archive
In 1992 he sued to be released from his eight-album contract with Sony Entertainment, saying that the conglomerate had soft-sold Prejudice.
From Time ● Dec. 26, 2016
And though he never soft-sold his own songs, he was smartly supportive when McVie or Nicks were in charge.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 1, 2014
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
