soft
adj.adj. not hard, and easy to press, bend, or cut. This word can also describe a quiet sound or a gentle light.
adj. having a pleasing quality involving a lack of hardness, sharpness, or roughness. It also describes sounds of low volume, lights of low intensity, or actions performed gently.
This blanket feels very soft.
He spoke in a soft voice so he would not wake the sleeping baby.
The morning light cast a soft glow over the landscape, blurring the sharp edges of the distant mountains.
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.
From Middle English softe, from Old English sōfte (“softly”), from Proto-West Germanic *samftō (“softly”).
He spoke soft.He spoke softly.To describe how an action is done (modifying a verb), use the adverb 'softly', not the adjective 'soft'.