slake
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
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”).
Inflected forms:
form: slakes
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: slaking
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: slaked
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: slaked
pos: verb
tags: past
form: slakes
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To satisfy (thirst, or other desires).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: slake the heavenly fire
It could not slake mine ire nor ease my heart.
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.
Tarzan went to the brook first, and slaked his thirst. Then he approached his cabin.
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.
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.
Before the transformation takes / And blood lust tanks and crave gets slaked
Europeans’ labour requirements in the New World were also slaked by slaves from Africa.
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.
gloss: To cool (something) with water or another liquid.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: 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.
gloss: To become mixed with water, so that a true chemical combination takes place.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The lime slakes.
gloss: To mix with water, so that a true chemical combination takes place.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: to slake lime
gloss: Of a person: to become less energetic, to slacken in one's efforts.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
obsolete
gloss: To slacken; to become relaxed or loose.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
obsolete
examples: When the body's strongest sinews slake.
gloss: To become less intense; to weaken, decrease in force.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
obsolete
examples: 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"
gloss: To go out; to become extinct.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
obsolete
examples: His flame did slake.
gloss: A sloppy mess.
pos: noun
tags: Scotland
Derived words: aslake
slakable
slaked
slakeless
slaker
slake trough
Translations: