velvet glove

noun

1. an outwardly gentle or friendly manner used to disguise one's firm or ruthless determination.

Example Sentences

“To have real control, you want to rule with a velvet glove,” Romero said.

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The vote is suppressed by confusion, chaos and the velvet glove, because of course it’s reasonable to want to know the truth before we move forward.

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“That velvet glove can come off, and the people know it can come off,” but mostly, you want them to comply because it feels like “just what has to be.”

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And the operatives could depend on one hard-edged principle: that those who style themselves as men of the world know there is an iron fist in every velvet glove, understand what might await them in the shadows and so, having decided to play the game, they will obey its rules.

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An iron fist demanding surrender will be wrapped in the velvet glove of its coercive premise: you can fight men about this and they’ll do it to you anyway while you go unpaid, or you can comply with men’s demands for it and maybe some of them will throw you a few bucks for the convenience of your voluntary submission.

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