Etymograph

English

softness

Softness comes from Old English sōftnes ‘ease, comfort’, and goes back to sōfte ‘soft’.

  1. Old Englishc. 450–1150sōfte1‘soft’
  2. Old Englishc. 450–1150sōftnes2‘ease, comfort’
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500softnesse2
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1882softness2

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Old English softnes
  2. 2 Wiktionary, English softness
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1882, The Pall Mall Budget: “[…] the informal dressers, with their "divided skirts" and…”.

Earlier history not traced here. See Wiktionary.

Lineage

  1. Old Englishc. 450–1150sōfteWiktionary, Old English softnes‘soft’
  2. Old Englishc. 450–1150sōftnesWiktionary, English softness‘ease, comfort’
  3. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500softnesseWiktionary, English softness
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1882softnessWiktionary, English softness. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1882, The Pall Mall Budget: “[…] the informal dressers, with their "divided skirts" and…”

Formed from soft + -ness

Proto-West Germanic *samft(ī) ‘level’

Old English sōfte

Middle English softe ‘soft’

English soft

The story

From Middle English softnesse, from Old English sōftnes, alteration of earlier sēftnes.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Every English word from Old English sōfte

Today it means

noun The quality of being soft.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “softness”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Old English softnes. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Old English sōfte / softness

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