Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Soothing; calming.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Softening; mitigating; tranquilizing; soothing.
  • noun A soothing medicine or application.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective rare Mitigating; tranquilizing; soothing.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective mild, soothing

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective freeing from fear and anxiety

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[ad– + suasive (sense influenced by assuage).]

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Examples

  • I have to say, after all the years of listening to this guy on the radio cutting other people to shreds with ridicule and condescension, there is something particularly assuasive about radio shock jock Don Imus playing the supplicant:

    From On High 2007

  • The intuition that came to him then was assuasive and confidential.

    Heaven Lake John Dalton 2004

  • The intuition that came to him then was assuasive and confidential.

    Heaven Lake John Dalton 2004

  • The intuition that came to him then was assuasive and confidential.

    Heaven Lake John Dalton 2004

  • The intuition that came to him then was assuasive and confidential.

    Heaven Lake John Dalton 2004

  • The intuition that came to him then was assuasive and confidential.

    Heaven Lake John Dalton 2004

  • The intuition that came to him then was assuasive and confidential.

    Heaven Lake John Dalton 2004

  • If chemists have identified substances that have fallen in Europe as sand from African deserts, swept up in African whirlwinds, that's assuasive to all the irritations that occur to those cloistered minds that must repose in the concept of a snug, isolated, little world, free from contact with cosmic wickednesses, safe from stellar guile, undisturbed by inter-planetary prowlings and invasions.

    The Book of the Damned Charles Fort

  • In Parts of Humour, too, she had a manner of blending her assuasive Softness even with the Gay, the Lively, and the Alluring.

    An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Volume I 1889

  • Perhaps, 'said Bounderby, staring with all his might at his so quiet and assuasive father-in-law,' you know where your daughter is at the present time! '

    Hard Times 1876

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