Covered with or containing soap; slippery and slick like soap, or overly emotional and fake like a soap opera.
From Old English 'sāpe' (soap) plus the -y suffix meaning 'full of.' The word 'soap opera' gave soapy a secondary meaning of exaggerated melodrama starting in the 1940s.
The term 'soap opera' came from the fact that soap and detergent companies sponsored these emotional radio dramas in the 1930s-40s, so soapy became a clever slang way to describe anything melodramatically fake or overly emotional.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.