Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Softening; emollient; soothing.

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

  • adjective Serving to soften; assuaging; emollient.

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

  • adjective Serving to soften or assuage; emollient.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin molliens, past participle of mollire to soften, from mollis soft.

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Examples

  • We veriters verity notefew demmed lustres priorly magistrite maxi-mollient in ludubility learned.

    Finnegans Wake 2006

  • All that day Dennis continued to receive his instalments of that bitter instruction in the ways of heedless employers and suspicious subordinates which, eased by a native good humor, conclude in the philosopher, or, unrelieved by this genial mollient, develop the cynic.

    The Flaw in the Sapphire Charles M. Snyder

  • That's fine shaving-soap, sir; he -- mollient; softens the stubble and the skin at the same time.

    In the Mahdi's Grasp George Manville Fenn 1870

  • Of the entrance lodges, we have noticed one of the chimneys smoking periodically; and, from the mollient white vapour issuing over the window at such times, presume Victoria is washing, whilst Albert is locked up and doing nothing.

    Christmas Comes but Once A Year Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, during that Festive Season. John Leighton 1867

  • It consists in removing all the fleshy particles from the pelt, and divesting it of a thin viscid substance upon the exterior, known as the "grain;" then, after permitting it to dry, it is thoroughly soaked in a liquid decoction formed from the brains of the animal and water, when it is stoutly rubbed with the hands in order to open its pores and admit the mollient properties of the fluid, — this done, the task is completed by alternate rubbings and distensions until it is completely dry and soft.

    ROCKY MOUNTAIN LIFE 1841

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