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.
It described her as having an "iron fist under the velvet glove", and observed that she knew how to "cut down Himalayan egos to the height of foothills".
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2026
“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
The steel-pointed claw beneath the velvet glove was all too apparent to the young Englishman, and he looked forward to the coming interview with feelings that were anything but pleasant.
From Under the Chilian Flag A Tale of War between Chili and Peru by W. (William) Rainey
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.
