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
Iron fist in a velvet glove: Smiling all the while, Nan manipulates the Roy children into overpaying $10 billion just so they can outbid their now-rivalrous father.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2023
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
As overlord, you can rule your gang with either velvet glove or iron fist.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 11, 2019
After his usual punctilious knock—he was a head master of the velvet glove type—he opened the door, and stood an interested and astonished spectator of the scene within.
From "Pip" A Romance of Youth by Hay, Ian
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.
