First recorded in 1950–55
First recorded in 1950–55
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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
The fable advises a soft sell augmented by persistence.
From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2021
In the sun-drenched cafeteria, Valencia Bautista sat behind a folding table in a corner, delivering a decidedly soft sell.
From New York Times ● Aug. 20, 2021
Lewis gives a soft sell that sometimes works.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 30, 2021
After months of the soft sell, the candidates and their supporters have become notably blunter in their appeals.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 16, 2020
With his genial, soft-sell style, Mr. Isakson stood in stark contrast with the two contentious and bombastic men he replaced in Congress.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 19, 2021
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
When Mertens arrived for the meeting, Fowles started a subtle soft-sell on the school.
From Salon ● Feb. 1, 2014
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 Jarvis, E. K.
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
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
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
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
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.
