soft on
29
8.0
- idiom
- He tends to be soft on his friends, which sometimes clouds his judgment.
- soft on drugs
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Watch on YouTubeYou know, like any politician that tries to, they're going to be seen as soft on crime.
- You know, like any politician that tries to, they're going to be seen as soft on crime.
- Yet this one case was a, was, was what was used to paint me as the, as the soft on crime judge.
Examples
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"You were going soft on me," Tim explained.
Fiction book (1999) -
Well, you've been pretty soft on her from the very beginning.
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- You want me to go soft on her, boss?
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You better not go soft on me!
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Are you turning soft on me?
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I was too soft on you ...
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The majority of Americans believe we have been way too soft on these issues and need to act.
Blog text (14) -
You're not going soft on me are you?
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You're too soft on him.
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Don't go soft on me now, princess.
Synonyms
36
5.8
Very strongly attracted to someone or something
31
3.6
A strong liking for someone or something
26
6.8
Very much in love with a person, place, or thing
23
6.1
Feeling a very strong but short attraction to someone, often without reason
21
7.1
Feeling a strong liking for someone or something, often very quickly
1
3.0
Love someone so much that you spoil them
1
8.1
Liking someone or something too much to be sensible
How Lenient
Surface Forms
Morphology
soft + on
The meaning is directly derivable from 'soft' (inclined to be lenient) plus the prepositional target marker 'on' — together yielding ‘lenient toward / overly fond of’. This is a regular compositional pattern (e.g., 'soft on crime') with cross-linguistic equivalents, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would infer the meaning.
Etymology
Soft on comes from the simple image of being soft and putting that softness on someone — like touching them gently so you let things pass. That's why if someone is soft on a person today, they are 'too kind' or 'lenient' and may overlook faults or make weak choices.