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Fire Escape Partners
3465 25th Street, Suite 17
San Francisco, CA 94110 | (adjective, noun)
[i-MOL-yahnt] 
adjective
1. having a softening or soothing effect, especially to the skin: "Rachael has a habit of using the strangest emollient foods for her dry skin."
2. anything soothing, or that makes something more acceptable; mollifying: 'the emollient approach of a diplomatic mediator'
noun
3. a toiletry consisting of any of various substances resembling cream that have a soothing and moisturizing effect when applied to the skin
4. something that soothes or mollifies
Origin:
Approximately 1643; from Latin, 'emolliens,' present participle of 'emollire': to soften ('e-': intensive prefix + 'mollire': to soften, from 'mollis': soft). In action:
"What has really concerned me about some of this writing has not been an urge to defend Blunkett: after all, he is big enough and ugly enough to defend himself. It is this apparently compulsive urge to generalise about what blindness or disability has made of us, but with little justification in fact. Apparently it is inconceivable that any of life's ups and downs can occur without blindness being the guiding principle. I can assure you I know more outgoing, emollient, selfless blind people than I know outgoing, emollient, selfless politicians."
Peter White. "Blind prejudice," [If Blunkett is indeed prickly and self-absorbed, it's because he's a politician, not because he's blind.] The Guardian (October 20, 2006).
"Experts suggest using cream cleansers which contain more oils and emollients than soap-based washes, so won't strip the skin."
Jessica Kiddle. "Face up to winter," The Scotsman (October 23, 2006).
"Whatever else it may be�stimulus, tranquilizer, aural nipple, too of executives, Muzak is basically trivializing. It is not simply that it relegates music to the province of wallpaper. Background music never need be banal. When it is used in support of drama, it can greatly enhance without harming itself. Mozart was entirely amenable to such films as Elvira Madigan and The French Lieutenant's Woman; Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote aptly for The Invaders, Arnold Bax for Oliver Twist, Sergei Prokofiev for Lieutenant Kije and Alexander Nevsky, Dmitri Shostakovich for others. In such uses, music collaborates with artists, it becomes an art among arts. But Muzak collaborates chiefly with management: it is used as an aural smoke-screen, a form of jamming, a hormone in the henhouse, an emollient in cemeteries."
Norman Corwin (b. 1910). U.S. author, editor. 'Music and Laughter,' Trivializing America: The Triumph of Mediocrity, Lyle Stuart (1986).
"And the frigid burnings of purgatory will not be touched
By any emollient."
Henry Reed (1914-1986). British poet. Chard Whitlow (l. 13-14).
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