soft-landed; soft-landing; soft-lands

transitive verb

: to cause to make a soft landing on a celestial body (such as the moon)

intransitive verb

: to make a soft landing
soft-lander noun

Examples of soft-land in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Those similarities have helped me soft-land into the production landscape here in Denmark and Europe. Annika Pham, Variety, 12 Mar. 2024 The plan also focuses on making downtown more friendly to small businesses by simplifying licensing and permitting regulations and in April, launching a soft-landing program to attract international companies and start-ups. Michael Brice-Saddler, Washington Post, 26 Feb. 2024 Astrobotic was the first company to fly under the CLPS initiative, and after its January setback, Intuitive Machines has picked up the torch — aiming to soft-land Odysseus near the lunar south pole on Thursday. Kristin Fisher, CNN, 21 Feb. 2024 The race by private companies to soft-land an uncrewed American spacecraft on the moon continues with Nova-C, targeted to touch down at crater Malapert A, near the moon’s south pole. George Petras, USA TODAY, 20 Jan. 2024 Just a few weeks ago Japan's 'Moon Sniper' rover made a pinpoint landing, making Japan only the fourth nation to successfully soft-land on the moon, joining the U.S, China and the Soviet Union. Jamie Carter, Forbes, 15 Feb. 2024 If successful, the landing of SLIM would make Japan the fifth country to soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon, following the Soviet Union, the United States, China, and India. Stephen Clark, Ars Technica, 19 Jan. 2024 That’s more payload at once than all humankind has soft-landed on the moon so far, including the six Apollo landers and associated hardware. Michael Greshko, Scientific American, 18 Jan. 2024 The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been posting images and videos of its lunar rover to X (formerly Twitter) after successfully soft-landing its Chandrayaan-3 lunar module on the Moon’s south pole last week. Wes Davis, The Verge, 28 Aug. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'soft-land.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

back-formation from soft landing

First Known Use

1958, in the meaning defined at transitive sense

Time Traveler
The first known use of soft-land was in 1958

Dictionary Entries Near soft-land

Cite this Entry

“Soft-land.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soft-land. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

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