soft-block
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.47 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To block (a user) on social media and then immediately unblock them, so that the user will (perhaps unknowingly) no longer follow or engage with the blocking user's posts.
Transitive verb
noun
The act of soft-blocking.
Example Sentences
- "Softblocking is not a built-in function, but a strategy. There are a few ways of doing it, but the idea is to create a sort of inverted mute."
- "Where a mute hides someone else’s posts from you, a softblock hides your posts from someone else, without completely blocking them. It’s less like building a wall and more like cutting a string."
- "And just last week, I gave my partner the silent treatment for not answering me after five minutes. On social media, all I seem to do is hard-block people left and right, foregoing the soft-block altogether. If I’m not doing that, I leave rude comments with super sassy emojis or direct message my friends with passive-aggressive cat GIFs."