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

Those tensions are said to have largely been smoothed over, helped by the club taking away a fee for booking courts that had existed even for members previously. —Charlie Eccleshare, New York Times, 15 June 2025

But according to those who returned to the site, much of the evidence had disappeared; the pits where the bone fragments had been found were smoothed over. —Will Freeman, Foreign Affairs, 9 June 2025

Silky to the touch, this creamy formulation flatters all skin tones—the seemingly peachy-toned product dries down translucent and instantly smooths over the appearance of pores and fine lines. —Conçetta Ciarlo, Vogue, 17 Mar. 2025

But the call with Von der Leyen appeared to smooth over tensions, at least for now. —Seung Min Kim, Los Angeles Times, 26 May 2025

Rhymes for smooth over

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