Also soft shell. [f. SOFT a.]
1. attrib. In the specific names of animals: Provided with a soft shell; = SOFT-SHELLED 1.
1856. Mayne Reid, Hunters’ Feast, xii. 98. It [the raccoon] is partial to the ‘soft-shell’ crabs and small tortoises common in the American waters.
1884. Goode, Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim., 152. The food of the Soft-shell Turtles consists of small fishes, snails, and other small animals.
1891. Webster (1897), Soft-shell clam,… the long clam.
transf. 1883. Goode, Fish. Indust. U. S., 51. This Crab is eaten in both the hard and soft shell condition.
2. attrib. That adopts or advocates a moderate or temperate course or policy. U.S.
1859. Bartlett, Dict. Amer. (ed. 2), 426. Soft-Shell Democrats, Soft-Shells, or Softs. The less conservative division of the New York Democrats.
1865. Pall Mall Gaz., 12 May, 1/1. The type of what the Americans might call the ‘soft-shell’ Radicals.
1872. De Vere, Americanisms, 241. Such are the Soft Shell Baptists, so called on account of their less stern manners and less rigid principles.
3. ellipt. a. = SOFT sb. 4 b. U.S.
1853. N. Y. Tribune, 2 April (Bartlett s.v. Hard-shell). The difference between a Hardshell and a Softshell.
1866. Chambers’s Encycl., VIII. 201/1. The ‘Soft Shells’ were ‘Free-soil’ Democrats.
b. A soft-shelled lobster. U.S.
1884. Goode, Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim., 783. ‘Black Lobster,’ ‘Soft-shell,’ ‘Berried Lobster.’
