quench
/kwɛnt͡ʃ/
quench verb: to satisfy, especially a literal or figurative thirst.
Verb
quench (third-person singular simple present quenches, present participle quenching, simple past quenched, past participle quenched or (obsolete) quent)
- To satisfy, especially a literal or figurative thirst.
- The library quenched her thirst for knowledge.
- The wearie Traueiler, wandring that way, / Therein did often quench his thriſty heat, / And then by it his wearie limbes diſplay, / Whiles creeping ſlomber made him to forget[…]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 254
- To extinguish or put out (as a fire or light).
- […] others ſaying, the fire would ceaſe as ſoon as it had vent, uncovered a great part of the houſe, breaking down the roofs, and destroying all that ſtood in their way. None of them went about to quench the fire, but all were employed in pulling down the houſe, […]1798, Francisco de Quevedo, anonymous translator, Fortune in Her Wits, and the Hour of All Men, volume 3, Edinburgh, translation of La fortuna con seso, y La hora de todos (in Spanish), pages 130–131
- “From here you will see which one of us two stands up...when the fiery vomit is quenched.”1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 44
- To cool rapidly by direct contact with liquid coolant, as a blacksmith quenching hot iron.
- The swordsmith quenched the sword in an oil bath so that it wouldn't shatter.
- To terminate or greatly diminish (a chemical reaction) by destroying or deforming the remaining reagents.
- To rapidly change the parameters of a physical system.
- A suitable method to prepare a system out of equilibrium in order to study the ensuing dynamics is to quench the system, i.e., to change its parameters abruptly.2018, P. Bleicker and G. S. Uhrig, “Strong quenches in the one-dimensional Fermi-Hubbard model”, in Physical Review A, volume 98, →DOI, page 1
- To rapidly terminate the operation of a superconducting electromagnet by causing part or all of the magnet's windings to enter the normal, resistive state.
- If someone is pinned against the MRI magnet by a ferromagnetic object, you may need to quench the magnet in order to free them.
- These knobs are generally mounted behind a cover of some sort, to prevent someone from leaning up against them or putting a philodendron on top of them, because (1) that aforementioned geyser can represent thousands to tens of thousands of dollars of helium these days, and (2) quenching is Not Good...2015 May 15, Derek Lowe, “Quenching NMRs, Accidentally and On Purpose”, in In the Pipeline, archived from the original on 20 Nov 2022
Noun
quench (plural quenches)
- The act of quenching something; the fact of being quenched.
- Then the MacManus [i.e. a ship] went down. The sudden quench of the white light was how I knew it.1965 [1949], Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March, New York: Random House, Inc., page 495
- The abnormal termination of operation of a superconducting magnet, occurring when part of the superconducting coil enters the normal (resistive) state.
- There are two main types of quenches, and both are triggered by the red button. A customer of ours actually pushed his once, out of curiosity. And no, he was not 7 years old. This button is primarily for safety purposes. In some rare cases, clear signage is ignored and metal objects like mop...2019 June 13, Steve Rentz, “What Is an MRI Quench?”, in Block Imaging, archived from the original on 20 Nov 2022
- A rapid change of the parameters of a physical system.
quench meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
quench in Hindi
- to extinguish or put out
- बुझाना bujhānā
quench in Tamil
- to extinguish or put out
- அவி avi, அணை aṇai
quench in Urdu
- quench
- اطفا کرنا atfā karnā
quench in Bengali
- নিভানো, তৃষ্ণা মেটানো
More languagesFewer languages
- quench in Telugu
- దాహముతీర్చు dāhamutīrcu, ఆర్చు ārcu
- quench in Malayalam
- തൃഷ്ണാനിവൃത്തി വരുത്തുക, ദാഹംതീർക്കുക, തീ കെടുത്തുക, ശമിപ്പിക്കുക
- quench in Kannada
- ನೊಂದು, ನಂದು, ಅಣೆ, ಆರು
- quench in Arabic
- أَنْقَعَ ʔanqaʕa
Examples of quench in a sentence
- I began also to feel very hungry, as not having eaten for twenty-four hours; and worse than that, there was a parching thirst and dryness in my throat, and nothing with which to quench it.[1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC:
- There are two main types of quenches, and both are triggered by the red button.2019 June 13, Steve Rentz, “What Is an MRI Quench?”, in Block Imaging, archived from the original on 20 Nov 2022:
Synonyms of quench
Forms of quench
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | quenches |
| present participle | quenching |
| past | quenched |
| past participle | quenched |
| past participle (obsolete) | quent |
| Noun | |
| plural | quenches |
Origin of quench
From Middle English quenchen, from Old English cwenċan, from Proto-Germanic *kwankijaną.
Words formed from quench
Words that rhyme with quench
11 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about quench
- What does quench mean?
- Quench means to satisfy, especially a literal or figurative thirst.
- What is quench in Hindi?
- Quench in Hindi is बुझाना (bujhānā). See Quench meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use quench in a sentence?
- I began also to feel very hungry, as not having eaten for twenty-four hours; and worse than that, there was a parching thirst and dryness in my throat, and nothing with which to quench it.
- What part of speech is quench?
- Quench can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce quench?
- Quench is pronounced /kwɛnt͡ʃ/.
- What is the past tense of quench?
- The past tense of quench is quenched.
Words near quench in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: quench (page history and authors); اطفا کرنا (Urdu) (page history and authors); quench (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); quench (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); quench (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-quench.wav.
Cite this entry: “quench.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quench. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.