quenches

Verb

quench (third-person singular simple present quenches, present participle quenching, simple past quenched, past participle quenched or (obsolete) quent)

1. (transitive) To satisfy, especially a literal or figurative thirst.
   • The library quenched her thirst for knowledge.

   Synonyms:

   appease, slake

2. (transitive) 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
3. (transitive) 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.
4. (transitive) To terminate or greatly diminish (a chemical reaction) by destroying or deforming the remaining reagents.
5. (transitive) 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
6. (transitive) 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.

See all 9 meanings of quench