subs. (thieves’).—Bank notes (GROSE): generic: also SOFT-FLIMSY. TO DO SOFT = to utter counterfeit notes.
Adj. (old).—(1) Foolish; easygoing (B. E. and BEE); and (2) choice, exquisite (see quot. 1596): originally effeminate. As subs. (SOFTY, or SOFT-HORN) = a simpleton; as adj. (SOFTISH, or SOFT-HEADED) = weak-minded, silly (BAILEY).
d. 1536. TYNDALE, Works, ii. 258 [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 428. An Emperor who gave in to the Pope is called a SOFT man].
1596. SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, v. 2, 110. Laertes … an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences, of very SOFT SOCIETY and great showing.
1621. BURTON, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 209. What cannot such scoffers do, especially if they find a SOFT creature on whom they may work. Ibid., 149. He made … SOFT fellows stark noddies.
1809. MALKIN, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 13. You are young, and seem a little SOFT.
1828. BADCOCK (‘Jon Bee’), Living Picture of London, 45. If you appear tolerably ‘SOFT,’ and will ‘stand it,’ he perhaps refuses these also, after having ‘rung the changes’ once more. This is called ‘a double do.’
1859. G. ELIOT, Adam Bede, ix. If you ’ve got a SOFT to drive you: he ’ll soon turn you over into the ditch.
1863. GASKELL, Sylvia’s Lovers, xv. Till they come athwart some poor wench like Nancy Hartley. She were but a SOFTY after all.
1864. M. E. BRADDON, Aurora Floyd, xvii. ‘I’ve mashed the tea for ’ee,’ said the SOFTY.
1888. M. A. WARD, Robert Elsmere, iii. He is a kind of SOFTIE—all alive on one side of his brain, and a noodle on the other.
1897. MARSHALL, Pomes, 73. Called the beak ‘a balmy kipper,’ dubbed him ‘SOFT about the shell.’
1902. LYNCH, High Stakes, xxxii. I … heard them calling me SOFTY, and other … names, before I had fairly turned my back on them.
PHRASES. SOFT-HEARTED = yielding, piteous, tender; ‘HARD (ARSE) OR SOFT?’ = ‘Third class or first?’; SOFT FOOD = pap; SOFT = hash; SOFT IS YOUR HORN = ‘You make a mistake’ (BEE); A SOFT THING = (1) an easy or pleasant task, and (2) a facile simpleton; A BIT OF HARD FOR A BIT OF SOFT (venery) = copulation; SOFT DOWN ON = in love with. See HARD-SHELL; HARD-TACK; SAWDER (adding quot. 1844 infra); SNAP; SOAP; SPOTS; TACK.
1844. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), The Attaché, I. ii. I don’t like to be left alone with a gall, it’s plaguy apt to set me a SOFT SAWDERIN’ and a courtin’. Ibid. (1855), Nature and Human Nature, II. ix. You said you trusted to ‘SOFT SAWDER’ to get it into the house.
