soft vs stern

soft

adj
  • Physically or emotionally weak. 

  • Of a ferromagnetic material; a material that becomes essentially non-magnetic when an external magnetic field is removed, a material with a low magnetic coercivity. (compare hard) 

  • Expressing gentleness or tenderness; mild; conciliatory; courteous; kind. 

  • Requiring little or no effort; easy. 

  • Voiced; sonant; lenis. 

  • Voiceless. 

  • Gentle. 

  • Lacking strength or resolve; not tough, wimpy. 

  • Low in dissolved calcium compounds. 

  • Smooth and flexible; not rough, rugged, or harsh. 

  • Easily giving way under pressure. 

  • Emulated with software; not physically real. 

  • Not likely to cause addiction. 

  • Not containing alcohol. 

  • Weak in character; impressible. 

  • Not harsh or offensive to the sight; not glaring or jagged; pleasing to the eye. 

  • Gentle in action or motion; easy. 

  • Incomplete, or temporary; not a full action. 

  • Effeminate. 

  • Of a market: having more supply than demand; being a buyer's market. 

  • softcore. 

  • Palatalized. 

  • Not bright or intense. 

  • Foolish. 

  • Agreeable to the senses. 

  • Having a slight angle from straight. 

  • Made up of nonparallel rays, tending to wrap around a subject and produce diffuse shadows. 

  • Quiet. 

noun
  • A soft sound or part of a sound. 

  • A soft or foolish person; an idiot. 

stern

adj
  • Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner. 

  • Grim and forbidding in appearance. 

verb
  • To propel or move backward or stern-first in the water. 

noun
  • A bird, the black tern. 

  • The tail of an animal; now used only of the tail of a dog. 

  • The hinder part of anything. 

  • The post of management or direction. 

  • The rear part or after end of a ship or vessel. 

How often have the words soft and stern occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )