Lessen in force or effect

Usage examples of softening.

At the sound of the closing door she had glanced up, and then, at the sight of the king, she sprang to her feet and ran towards him, her hands out, her blue eyes bedimmed with tears, her whole beautiful figure softening into womanliness and humility.

Worse still, she found it impossible to tear her eyes away from his eyes, which clung to hers with the intensity of a command, willing her to obey, to take note, to listen, then, seeing compliance, gradually softening as if beseeching her pardqn, understanding, and forgiveness and expressing sadness for all that had happened and was about to happen.

Female hormones feminize the male body by softening the skin, reducing the growth of body hair, broadening the hips, and enlarging the breasts and nipples.

He was of the iron of which martyrs are made, but in the heart of the matrix had lurked a nobler metal, fusible at a milder heat, yet never coloring nor softening the hard exterior.

She just waited, and the water lapped against the stones, and the wind gusted through my hair and pulled strands of hers from the silver-cords, softening her straight strong features in the afternoon light.

Shimmer must have uvvied some information to the mynah, for now its demeanor grew less blank, a subtle effect achieved by a softening of the lines of its beak.

Day after day slipped by,-the wonderful clear days of Potomac autumn, with the sound of northing geese at night, sailing high under the frosty stars, but not until the 315t of the month, with the first November rain softening the clay roads of Maryland and Virginia, did McClellan send word to the President that he was about to make a strong reconnaissance up the Potomac toward Leesburg.

Winchester, until, her brain softening, Pomfret, driven by one of the kindest and gentlest impulses of his life, had given her shelter and protection.

The beams looked solid enough, but it was easy to see where fresh paint had been applied to conceal the tell-tale blotches of softening decay.

To the right was a land of endless jagged, tilted plains, softening and blurring in the blue distance.

Haig played the lead role in brainwashing and confusing President Nixon, and in effect it was Kissinger who ran the White House during this softening up of the President.

Neither could she help the meting heat softening her womb, spreading through all her secret places.

Lorry and Miss Pross are shown to be softening under the good influence of Lucie and her family, so that by the third part they are no longer stereotypes of an old England of which Dickens is critical.

For a long moment her lips were smothered beneath his passionate kiss, but even in his rough embrace she could feel herself softening and a warm glow beginning deep inside as his mouth moved upon hers, brutally snatching her will from her.

Elizabeth had already divested herself of hat, coat, and jacket, and Marina found herself eyeing the fashionable emerald trumpet skirt with its trimming of black soutache braid and the cream silk shirtwaist with its softening fall of Venice lace with a pang of envy.