relent
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: From Middle English relenten, from Anglo-Norman relentir, from Latin re- + lentare (“to bend”), from lentus (“soft, pliant, slow”). Earliest recording dates to 1526. The noun is from the verb.
Inflected forms:
form: relents
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: relents
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: relenting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: relented
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: relented
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A stay; a stop; a delay.
pos: noun
examples: There was no relent, my dear, as we pulled each other in.
The pistons of this engine moved without relent.
She forward went[…]
Ne rested till she came without relent
Unto the land of Amazons.
gloss: A relenting.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
gloss: To give in or be swayed; to become less hard, harsh, or cruel; to show clemency.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: He had planned to ground his son for a month, but relented and decided to give him a stern lecture instead.
Can you, my Lord of Winchester, behold
My sighs and tears and will not once relent?
Only the valley where Sish rested when he and Time were young did Sish not provoke his hours to assail. There he restrained his old hound Time […] For the minds of the gods relent towards their earliest memories, who relent not otherwise at all.
I did, I suppose, hope that she might finally relent a little and make some conciliatory response or other.
gloss: To slacken; to abate.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: We waited for the storm to relent before we ventured outside.
He will not relent in his effort to reclaim his victory.
WORF: When my foster brother and I were of age, we entered the Starfleet Academy. He hated it and returned to Gault. I stayed.
KONMEL: You have not spent much time among your own kind.
WORF: Hardly none.
KORRIS: So, when the night was still and quiet, and the sound of the blood rushing through your veins filled your ears, the only way to silence it was to slip out into the night and, like the hunter that spawned you, join in the struggle of life and death. You were unable
KONMEL: And those around you did not understand. You frightened them.
KORRIS: They shunned you. Cursed you. Called you vile names, and you knew not why. Even now do you know why you are driven? Why you cannot relent or repent or confess or abstain? How could you know? There have been no other Klingons to lead you to that knowledge.
WORF: Yes. Yes, those feelings are part of me. But I control them. They do not rule me.
KORRIS: Yes. To fit in, the humans demand that you change the one thing that you cannot change. Yet, because you cannot, you do. That too is the mark of the warrior. You said that I mock you. I do not. I salute you.
gloss: To lessen, make less severe or intense.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
transitive
examples: But nothing might relent her hastie flight; / So deepe the deadly feare of that foule swaine / Was earst impressed in her gentle spright […]
gloss: To become less rigid or hard; to soften; to yield, for example by dissolving or melting
pos: verb
tags: dated
intransitive
examples: [Salt of tartar] placed in a cellar will […] begin to relent.
When opening buds salute the welcome day, / And earth, relenting, feels the genial ray.
Related words: lento
lentulid
Derived words: relenter
relentful
relentingly
relentless
relentment
unrelented
unrelenting
Translations: