soft shoe

See also: softshoe and soft-shoe

English

(performing arts) A kind of tap dancing performed in soft-soled shoes, popular in vaudeville.
- 1966 Jan. 15, "Sunday (TV listings)," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, p. 19 (retrieved 5 Oct 2008):
  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.
- 2018 December 12, Charles Bramesco, “A Spoonful of Nostalgia Helps the Calculated Mary Poppins Returns Go Down”, in The A.V. Club‎^[1], archived from the original on 24 May 2019:
  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.
(idiomatic) 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.
- 2001 November 26, Adam Piore, “Red, White And What A Deal!”, in Newsweek, retrieved 1 May 2014:
  Is the salesman's soft-shoe appropriate in a time of national mourning?

soft shoe (not comparable)

(usually hyphenated) Of or pertaining to this kind of dancing.
(idiomatic) Casual, low-key, easy-going.
- 1958 October 6, “Mellow Man in Charge”, in Time, retrieved 5 October 2008:
  Occasionally criticized for his soft-shoe approach (e.g., he urged the President to avoid a public squabble with Joe McCarthy), Persons nonetheless won many a legislator over to the Administration side.

soft shoe (third-person singular simple present soft shoes, present participle soft shoeing, simple past and past participle soft shoed)