soft-boiled
adjective
Simple meaning
Cooked to a soft consistency with the yolk still runny.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sawftboyldSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsɔftˈbɔɪld
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
of a boiled egg
Cooked to a soft consistency with the yolk still runny
Softhearted or sentimental
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Typical Use
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (of a boiled egg) cooked to a soft consistency with the yolk still runny
Used this way, soft-boiled is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a food and cooking use: everyday in kitchens and recipes.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Cooking/food
- Everyday conversation
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.