| 释义 |
soft soap, n.
Also soft-soap.
[f. soft a.]
1. a. A smeary, semi-liquid soap, made with potash lye; potash soap.
1634in Rymer Fœdera (1732) XIX. 567/1 That no soft Soap be sold..for above three pence the pound. 1641Short Relation conc. Soap-Business 4 To make soft soape with Berilla. 1728Chambers Cycl. s.v. Soap, The Soft Soap..is either White or Green. 1812Sir H. Davy Chem. Philos. 331 Potassa enters into the composition of soft soap. 1883Specif. Alnwick & Cornhill Rlwy. 11 In drilling the holes no oil is to be used, but only soft soap and water.
b. With pl. A make or kind of this.
1783Encycl. Brit. (ed. 2) X. 8196/2 In soft or liquid soaps,..cheaper oils are employed. 1857Miller Elem. Chem., Org. vi. §2. 371 The base..of the soft soaps is potash. 1879Cassell's Techn. Educ. I. 357/2 The hard, the soft, and the marine soaps.
2. slang. Flattery; blarney; ‘soft sawder’. Also attrib. orig. U.S.
1830Reg. Deb. Congress U.S. 12 Apr. 774, I will not use the vulgar phrase, and say he has been pouring soft soap down the backs of the New York delegation. 1842People's Organ (St. Louis) 15 Apr. 2/2 The magnificent bombshell, rammed full of pride, aristocracy,..soft-soap, curiosity, folly, display, nonsense, man-worship and small-talk, was touched off. 1848Bartlett Dict. Amer. 320 Soft soap, flattery; blarney. A vulgar phrase, though much used. 1861Hughes Tom Brown at Oxford xxxiii, He and I are great chums, and a little soft soap will go a long way with him. 1901Delannoy {pstlg}19,000, xxxix, ‘You're the most sensible woman I've ever met.’ ‘None of your soft-soap, now!’ 1934Sun (Baltimore) 6 Nov. 2/2 Assailing Governor Lehman for his ‘soft soap’ manner of campaign, the park commissioner..renewed his assault on the Lehman banking family. 1961Radio Times 6 Apr. 21/2 ‘Nobody likes to watch a soft-soap interview. People want the facts and they can take them,’ says Robin Day. 1977Irish Times 8 June 9/6 The public would not be fooled by this ‘crazy parade of soft-soap offers’. |