soft landing

Short definition from Wiktionary

Noun

1. 1
   A landing that does not result in the destruction of the payload or the vehicle.
2. 2
   A business cycle downturn which avoids recession.
3. 3
   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.
4. 4
   Sudden or extreme changes in speed.

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of soft land
2. 2
   present participle and gerund of soft-land