Meaning

Having a pleasant, gentle, mild manner of speech; speaking gently or quietly..

Example Sentences

He was a soft-spoken fellow who loved children and dogs.

My uncle was a lovely man, and soft-spoken with his delightful Manx accent.

[S]he was one of your ſoft ſpoken, canting, whining hypocrites, who with a truly jeſuitical art, could wreſt evil out of the moſt inoffenſive thought, word, look or action; […]

With no great disparity between them in point of years, they were, in every other respect, as unlike and far removed from each other as two men could well be. The one was soft-spoken, delicately made, precise, and elegant; the other, a burly square-built man, negligently dressed, rough and abrupt in manner, stern, and, in his present mood, forbidding both in look and speech.

In fact, this educator, lawyer, editor, composer, author, poet, and diplomat [James Weldon Johnson] would become a sturdy fulcrum for black America's transition in 1916 from the softspoken conformity and accommodation of the Booker T. Washington era to a vigorous militant idealism that targeted no less than full equality.

We were driving to the Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Centre, south of Bitung, to meet with Harry Hilser, program manager for the nonprofit Selamatkan Yaki—which works to save Sulawesi's crested black macaques—and the rescue center's manager, Simon Purser, a soft-spoken Brit who seems to carry the weight of the world on his slim frame.

Word Forms

• more soft-spoken
• most soft-spoken
• softspoken

Synonyms for soft-spoken

Related Words

When Should You Use Soft-spoken?

Use soft-spoken when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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