The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 7 letter word CEDILLA
I've seen this crossword clue in The Times
C
E
D
I
L
L
A
More clues leading to the result CEDILLA
- A short month back, being sick — a sign of softness?
- A linguistic sign from the Man in Black?
- What leads to some hissing when you call “garçon”?
- Niçoise ingredient?
- French symbol in hall I decoded on way up
- Dicky’s found in wood having misplaced last mark on French map?
- French mark I called squiggly
- Mark everything up after dice thrown
- Black dresses evidently designed primarily for French character
- Low mark in French I called wrong
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "sign of softness?" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case sign of softness? = cedilla.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does CEDILLA mean?
CEDILLA noun- In the spelling of Catalan, French, Portuguese and some other languages, a mark (¸) sometimes placed under the letter c to indicate that it is pronounced /s/ rather than /k/, as in Catalan força, French menaçant, and Portuguese almoço, and also used in various other languages to change the sounds of other letters.