soften someone/something up

soften | Business English

soften
verb
uk /ˈsɒfən/us
[ I ] FINANCE, STOCK MARKET
if demand, a price, a market, etc. softens, it stops increasing or it goes down:
Share prices softened with continued worries about the country's economic recovery.
Although demand softened again in November, it has strengthened in December.
When the economy began softening, the relatively newer factories in the suburbs began to feel pressure.
There are signs that household expenditure is already softening after the longest consumer boom on record.
soften against sthSterling may have strengthened against the dollar but it's softened against the euro.
[ I or T ]
to become, or to make something seem, less severe or unpleasant:
The regulator's stance on water mergers has softened.
The new draft softens the rules on the role of the senior non-executive director.
The organisation is trying to soften its image.

Examples of soften

soften
Radially softening diffusive motions in a globular protein.
The mashed front fender and broken rear spring had softened everybody's concern for the automobile ' ' (153).
The micropylar endosperm of a seed was considered softened when it required a force of less than 1200 g to cause radicle protrusion.
Several considerations might be brought against this ' softening ' of the status of miracles.
The micropylar endosperm was considered softened when radicle protrusion was induced by applying a force of 1200 g or less.
He noticed for the first time that she had become a woman ; her body had lengthened and softened.
Cutting a scene in which a king is banished from the final celebrations of the opera softened the impact of a potentially subversive political message.
All of these constraints are softened when neutrals determine the mean free path since they do not influence the dust long-range interaction appreciably.
The warm, sophisticated harmonic palette, dark textures and softened use of percussion go against this blueprint.
Adding reverberation to this sound softens the edges, and brings out its vocal quality.
Of course, since is the stress which appears in conservation of momentum (2.19 a), softening in causes ill-posedness.
The grouping of these senses, as given in section 3.2, softens the penalty for failing to read the author's mind.
Apparently, for the micropylar endosperm to be sufficiently softened, an extensive degradation of the wall mannans was required.
A new combination of softening and clearing techniques, which is remarkably effective for direct observations of embryos in minute seeds, is reported here.
None of the seeds were softened arti®cially (made permeable to water), and the hardseededness of the medics in particular would have been 85+95%.
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