Meaning of soft shoe | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A kind of tap dancing performed in soft-soled shoes, popular in vaudeville.
   uncountable
2. A speech, explanation, sales pitch, or other set of remarks delivered in a restrained or conciliatory manner in order to persuade, distract, or otherwise influence someone.
   idiomatic, uncountable

Examples

“Between Mr. O'Connor and Mr. Newley there's a delightful exhibition of the dances and their origin dating gack a few hundred years, from the clog to the buck, the wing, and the buck and wing, and on to the old soft shoe and more.”

“Like⟳ the technically astounding and spiritually hollow production numbers, however, [Emily] Blunt can't situate the sentimental energy in a deeper foundation. Her excellence gets left in a sort⟳ of vacuum when paired with the fully extraneous train⟳ wreck of a visit⟳ with Meryl Streep as kooky Poppins cousin Topsy or some discomfiting soft shoe from a creaky Dick Van Dyke.”

“Is the salesman's soft-shoe appropriate in a time of national mourning?”

CEFR level