Soft-launch
Etymology
Borrowed from product and marketing, where a "soft launch" quietly releases something to a limited audience before the full rollout. Applied to relationships on social media around 2020–2021, it names the coy, partial reveal that precedes a public "hard launch."
verb · /SAWFT-lawnch/
To hint online at a new relationship — a hand, a shoulder, a second wine glass — without formally revealing who the partner is.
What it names
It names a deliberate stage of controlled disclosure: signaling that someone exists while withholding their identity. It buys deniability and lets a couple test the waters of going public, with the eventual full reveal understood as the "hard launch."
Example
She soft-launched him with a photo of two coffees and a mystery arm, and the group chat lost its mind.
Related idea
The opposite of hard launch, the full public reveal; the soft version is all suggestion and no name.