soft sign
nounUK /ˌsɒftˈsaɪn/ · US /ˌsɔftˈsaɪn/
Etymology Calque of Russian мя́гкий знак (mjáxkij znak), from мя́гкий (mjáxkij, “palatal, palatized, soft”) + знак (znak, “mark, sign”).
1
The Cyrillic letter Ь/ь (transliterated in English with an apostrophe (’) or prime (′)), which in modern languages using the Cyrillic alphabet serves to denote a soft (palatized) consonant.