Defn: Softly; without roughness or harshness; gently; quietly.
Chaucer.
A knight soft riding toward them. Spenser.
SOFT
Soft, interj.
Defn: Be quiet; hold; stop; not so fast.
Soft, you; a word or two before you go. Shak.
SOFTA Sof"ta, n. Etym: [Corruption of Per. s one who burns, is ardent or zealous.]
Defn: Any one attached to a Mohammedan mosque, esp. a student of the higher branches of theology in a mosque school. [Written also sophta.]
SOFTEN
Sof"ten, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Softened; p. pr. & vb. n. Softening.]
Defn: To make soft or more soft. Specifically: — (a) To render less hard; — said of matter. Their arrow's point they soften in the flame. Gay.
(b) To mollify; to make less fierce or intractable. Diffidence conciliates the proud, and softens the severe. Rambler.
(c) To palliate; to represent as less enormous; as, to soften a fault. (d) To compose; to mitigate; to assuage. Music can soften pain to ease. Pope. (e) To make calm and placid. All that cheers or softens life. Pope.
(f) To make less harsh, less rude, less offensive, or less violent, or to render of an opposite quality. He bore his great commision in his look, But tempered awe, and softened all he spoke. Dryden.