smooth over

phrasal verb

smoothed over; smoothing over; smooths over also smoothes over

: to make (a disagreement, problem, difficulty, etc.) seem less serious than it really is

Don't worry about missing the application deadline—we'll smooth that over with the office.

She smoothed over the objections to his candidacy.

Examples of smooth over in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Roofman is simply too odd a bird, a movie that sets out to be a romp but can’t bring itself to smooth over the rougher aspects of its material, especially in terms of its main character’s addiction to showing off with gifts or flashes of cash. —Alison Willmore, Vulture, 10 Oct. 2025

Ice splitting and being smoothed over again and again, and then a blade, a spray of cut ice—then air and water and skin and fragile bone. —Hazlitt, 8 Oct. 2025

The great quarterbacks are janitors for organizational messes, smoothing over the cracks and making a bad team look competent for three hours. —Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 29 Sep. 2025

In its latest publication, the lobby representing over 1,600 member companies put forward 1,141 recommendations to Chinese policymakers, aimed at smoothing over various obstacles faced by European firms in the country. —Preston Fore, Fortune, 17 Sep. 2025

Rhymes for smooth over

• carryover
• changeover
• crossover
• cutover
• flashover
• hangover
• holdover
• layover
• leftover
• makeover
• moreover
• passover