Etymology

soft

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Today it means: Easily giving way under pressure. Full definition →

Middle English softe ← Old English sōfte ← Proto-West Germanic *samft(ī)
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soft · adjective, interjection, noun1

  1. Proto-Indo-European*sem-
  2. Proto-Germanic*samþuz /*samftuz
  3. Proto-West Germanic*samft(ī)
  4. Old Englishsōfte
  5. Middle Englishsofte
  6. English todaysoft

From Middle English softe, from Old English sōfte, alteration of earlier sēfte (“soft”), from Proto-West Germanic *samft(ī) (“level, even, smooth, soft, gentle”) (compare *sōmiz (“agreeable, fitting”)), from Proto-Indo-European *semptio-, *semtio-, from *sem- (“one, whole”). Cognate with West Frisian sêft (“gentle; soft”), Dutch zacht (“soft”), German Low German sacht (“soft”), German sanft (“soft, yielding”), Old Norse sœmr (“agreeable, fitting”), samr (“same”). More at seem, same.

soft · adverb2

  1. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*samftō“softly”
  2. Old English · inherited fromsōfte“softly”
  3. Middle English · inherited fromsofte
  4. English todaysoft

From Middle English softe, from Old English sōfte (“softly”), from Proto-West Germanic *samftō (“softly”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.