[f. as prec.]
† 1. Flattering, blandishing; specious, plausible.
1599. Shaks., etc. Pass. Pilgr., i. A 3. O, Loues best habite is a soothing toung.
1603. Daniel, Lady Anne Clifford, 76. The tongues of praise, And troopes of soothing people, that collaud All that we doe.
1644. Milton, Bucer on Div., Wks. 1851, IV. 338. Under a false and soothing title of Marriage. Ibid. (1671), P. R., III. 6. At length collecting all his Serpent wiles, [he] With soothing words renew’d, him thus accosts.
2. That soothes, calms, quietens, etc.; pacifying, mollifying.
1746. Francis, trans. Horace, Epist., I. i. 49. IV. 9.
| The Power of Words, and soothing Sounds appease | |
| The raging Pain, and lessen the Disease. |
1766. Fordyce, Serm. Yng. Wm. (1767), II. xiii. 249. From an agreeable young woman … it is incredibly soothing.
1801. Southey, Thalaba, VI. ix. Lull’d by the soothing and incessant sound, The flow of many waters.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., i. I. 92. Had the king been wise, he would have pursued a cautious and soothing policy towards Scotland till he was master in the south.
1872. Black, Adv. Phaeton, xii. 160. The soothing influences of dinner had departed.
b. spec. Of medical applications, drugs, etc.
1896. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., I. 422. Infants who are being drugged by unscrupulous nurses with ‘soothing syrups’ or other opiates. Ibid. (1899), VIII. 597. The affection … disappears in a few weeks under an iron tonic and a soothing application.
