Abstract: With cyclic lateral load, the accumulation of unrecovered plastic deformation in the soil around pile will induce the degradation of pile-soil interaction. The strain-softening soil model, as a simple extension of the elastic-perfectly plastic Tresca model, accompanied with the results of centrifuge model, is used to establisht the cyclic p–y curve by modifying static hyperbolic p–y curve. The effects of the lateral cyclic load on the pile behavior are considered by analyzing the pile-soil interaction mechanism. The rationality of the proposed method is verified by comparison with centrifugal model tests on rigid short piles subjected to cyclic lateral load.