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• soft soap
  soft soap

  noun

  persuasive talk; flattery.
• soft-soap
  soft-soap

  verb (used with object)

  to cajole; flatter.

soft soap

¹ American  

noun

1. Informal. persuasive talk; flattery.

   to use soft soap to get one's way.

2. the semifluid soap produced when potassium hydroxide is used in the saponification of a fat or an oil.

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soft-soap ² American  

[sawft-sohp, soft-] / ˈsɔftˈsoʊp, ˈsɒft- /

verb (used with object)

1. Informal. to cajole; flatter.

2. to apply soft soap to.

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verb (used without object)

1. to use soft soap in washing.

soft soap British  

noun

1. med another name for green soap

2. informal flattering, persuasive, or cajoling talk

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verb

1. informal to use such talk on (a person)

soft soap Cultural  

1. Flattery: “Mary asked the boss to stop giving her a lot of soft soap about her performance and to start leveling with her like any other employee.”

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soft soap Idioms  

1. Flattery, cajolery, as in She's only six but she's learned how to get her way with soft soap. This colloquial expression alludes to liquid soap, likening its slippery quality to insincere flattery. Its figurative use was first recorded in 1830.

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Etymology

Origin of soft soap¹

First recorded in 1625–35

Origin of soft-soap²

First recorded in 1820–30

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

soft soap soft-soap

“Let us then discuss the value of soft soap on complexions — and husbands. … We shall sit together on the edge of the world. You have wanted a friend. I’M IT.”

From Washington Post ● Oct. 11, 2022

Founder and creative director Joy Cho’s lifestyle brand offers whimsical products, spanning bandages to soft soap, as well as regular editorial content online.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 31, 2021

I just buy the real soft soap and then mix it with water and refill this.

From Salon ● May 8, 2020

But since she has become the Times' s drama critic, the theat-ah quotient has risen on , and her questions have become so soft soap they're almost bubbles.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 2, 2013

On Monday a man comes and collects three barrels of scraps of fat and brings back one barrel of soft soap on Wednesday.

From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

He then moved to London to work for a soft-soap company.

From BBC ● May 14, 2025

But, away from Fox News, the soft-soap treatment will only extend so far.

From The New Yorker ● Jan. 20, 2017

The implication is that what little engagement there has been has failed to soft-soap Kim Jong-un into change.

From BBC ● Feb. 23, 2016

There's a time for soft-soap, and a time for Brillo-pad diplomacy.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 1, 2012

When your mother came into the room she laughed almost as hard as she did when she saw me in the soft-soap barrel, and said, "Why, father, you are rather old to play cat's cradle!"

From Letters from a Cat by Jackson, Helen Hunt