slake
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /sleɪk/
rhymes: -eɪk
Forms: form: slakes
form: slaking
form: slaked
form: slaked
Etymology: From Middle English slaken (“to render slack, to slake”), from Old English sleacian, from Old English slæc (“slack”). Unrelated to, but possibly influenced by, the Old Norse sløkkva (“to extinguish”), compare Swedish släcka in the phrase släcka sin törst (“quench one's thirst”), släcka elden (“put out the fire”), and släckt kalk (“slaked lime”).
Senses: examples: text: slake the heavenly fire
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 40:
text: It could not slake mine ire nor ease my heart.
ref: c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:
text: Tyrian garbs, / Neptunian Albion's high teſtaceous food [i.e., oysters], / And flavour'd Chian wines with incenſe fum'd / To ſlake Patrician thirſt: for theſe, their rights / In the vile ſtreets they proſtitute to ſale; / Their ancient rights, their dignities, their laws, / Their native glorious freedom.
ref: 1740, John Dyer, “The Ruins of Rome. A Poem.”, in Poems. … Viz. I. Grongar Hill. II. The Ruins of Rome. III. The Fleece, in Four Books, London: Printed by John Hughs, for Messrs. R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley, […], published 1759, →OCLC, pages 42–43:
text: Tarzan went to the brook first, and slaked his thirst. Then he approached his cabin.
ref: 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 118:
text: The booths of the publicans gazed shamelessly at the sun, with two empty porter barrels as supports at their doors, ready to smile at their clients with their seductive roundness, ready to lure the thirsty islanders into the gloomy recesses beneath the canvas, where Mulligan's assistant or Mrs Moroney's assistant would hand out frothy pints of porter and glistening tumblers of whisky to slake the thirst and set the blood tingling.
ref: 1923, Liam O'Flaherty, “Saturday”, in Thy Neighbour's Wife, 1st paperback edition, Wolfhound Press, →ISBN, page 214:
text: In that study, some of the subjects had dreams in which they were slaking their thirst, very much like the dreams of convenience Freud described.
ref: 1991, David Koulack, To catch a dream: explorations of dreaming, page 98:
text: Before the transformation takes / And blood lust tanks and crave gets slaked
ref: 2006, “Wolf Like Me”, in Return to Cookie Mountain, performed by TV on the Radio:
text: Europeans’ labour requirements in the New World were also slaked by slaves from Africa.
ref: 2017, Jason Hickel, The Divide […] , London: William Heinemann, →ISBN:
text: After watching people downing drink on the train, I am in need of slaking my own thirst, so I pop into the station's Centurion Bar.
ref: 2022 November 30, Paul Bigland, “Destination Oban: a Sunday in Scotland”, in RAIL, number 971, page 75:
synonyms: quench
extinguish
glosses: To satisfy (thirst, or other desires).
examples: text: Notes for landscape tones. Long sequences of tempera. Light filtered through the essence of lemons. An air full of brick-dust - sweet smelling brick dust and the odour of hot pavements slaked with water.
ref: 1961, Lawrence Durrell, Justine, page 14:
glosses: To cool (something) with water or another liquid.
examples: text: The lime slakes.
glosses: To become mixed with water, so that a true chemical combination takes place.
examples: text: to slake lime
glosses: To mix with water, so that a true chemical combination takes place.
glosses: Of a person: to become less energetic, to slacken in one's efforts.
examples: text: When the body's strongest sinews slake.
ref: 1595, John Davies, Orchestra:
glosses: To slacken; to become relaxed or loose.
examples: text: wherfor the quene waxed wroth with sir Launcelot / and vpon a day she called sir launcelot vnto her chamber and saide thus / Sir launcelot I see and fele dayly that thy loue begynneth to slake / for thou hast no Ioye to be in my presence / but euer thou arte oute of thys Courte
"wherefore the queen waxed wroth with Sir Launcelot. And upon a day she called Sir Launcelot unto her chamber, and said thus: Sir Launcelot, I see and feel daily that thy love beginneth to slake, for thou hast no joy to be in my presence, but ever thou art out of this court"
ref: 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “Primum”, in Le Morte Darthur, book XVIII:
glosses: To become less intense; to weaken, decrease in force.
examples: text: His flame did slake.
ref: 1613, William Browne, Britannia's Pastorals:
glosses: To go out; to become extinct.
Derived terms: slaked
slake trough