soft landing

See also: soft-landing

English

Etymology 1

Noun

soft landing (countable and uncountable, plural soft landings)

1. (countable, aeronautics) A landing that does not result in the destruction of the payload or the vehicle.
2. (countable, economics) A business cycle downturn which avoids recession.
   • 2023 November 4, Harriet Clarfelt, Jennifer Hughes, “Hopes build for US ‘soft landing’”, in FT Weekend, page 1:

     Hopes that the US economy is heading for a “soft landing” were boosted yesterday by the latest job figures, fuelling a rally in stocks and bonds.

   • 2024 January 30, Larry Elliott, “IMF warns Jeremy Hunt against tax cuts in budget”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     The IMF said the global economy was gliding towards a “soft landing” after coping with the impact of tough central bank interest-rate action to reduce inflation.

3. (uncountable, chemistry) A form of mass spectrometry characterized by deposition of intact species on surfaces at low kinetic energies which precludes the fragmentation of the incident species.

   Coordinate term: hard landing

Translations

landing that does not result in the destruction of the payload and/or the vehicle

• Catalan: aterratge suau m
• Dutch: zachte landing f
• French: atterrissage en douceur (fr) m
• German: weiche Landung f
• Italian: atterraggio morbido m
• Russian: мя́гкая поса́дка (ru) (mjáxkaja posádka)
• Spanish: aterrizaje suave m
• Ukrainian: м'яка́ поса́дка (mʺjaká posádka)

Verb

soft landing

1. present participle and gerund of soft land

Etymology 2

From the beatmania IIDX 2nd style song "SOFT LANDING ON THE BODY".

Noun

soft landing (plural soft landings)

1. (rhythm games, slang) Sudden or extreme changes in speed.

   (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)