Word.ws English Dictionary

slake

/sleɪk/

slake verb: to satisfy (thirst, or other desires).

Verb (1)

slake (third-person singular simple present slakes, present participle slaking, simple past and past participle slaked)

  1. (transitive) To satisfy (thirst, or other desires).
    • slake the heavenly fire1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 40
    • It could not slake mine ire nor ease my heart.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...
    Synonyms:
    quench, extinguish
  2. (transitive) To cool (something) with water or another liquid.
    • 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.1961, Lawrence Durrell, Justine, page 14
  3. (intransitive) To become mixed with water, so that a true chemical combination takes place.
    • The lime slakes.
  4. (transitive) To mix with water, so that a true chemical combination takes place.
    • to slake lime
  5. (intransitive, obsolete) Of a person: to become less energetic, to slacken in one's efforts.
  6. (intransitive, obsolete) To slacken; to become relaxed or loose.
    • When the body's strongest sinews slake.1595, John Davies, Orchestra
  7. (intransitive, obsolete) To become less intense; to weaken, decrease in force.
    • 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"1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “Primum”, in Le Morte Darthur, book XVIII
  8. (intransitive, obsolete) To go out; to become extinct.
    • His flame did slake.1613, William Browne, Britannia's Pastorals

Verb (2)

slake (third-person singular simple present slakes, present participle slaking, simple past and past participle slaked)

  1. (Scotland, transitive) To besmear.

Noun (1)

slake (plural slakes)

  1. (Scotland) A sloppy mess.

Noun (2)

slake (plural slakes)

  1. A slack, a tidal wetland.
    • The slakes are waste lands bordering on the seashore, which are covered with water when the tide comes in. The word is common in Northumberland, where the slakes between the Mainland and Holy Island, are much frequented by sportsmen[…]1868, James Maidment, A Book of Scotish Pasquils. 1568-1715, page 4
    • A "slake" of similar character, but of much less extent, was, until recently, found within the estuary of the Tyne. This is […] "Jarrow Slake" [...] frequented by great numbers of aquatic birds.1874, Natural History Transactions of Northumberland and Durham

slake meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

slake in Urdu

بھگونا, بجھانا, روک تھام کرنا

slake in Bengali

তৃষ্ণা মেটানো, প্রশমিত করা

slake in Malayalam

ദാഹം ശമിപ്പിക്കുക, കക്ക നീറുക, അടക്കുക, തണുപ്പിക്കുക

slake in Kannada

ಹಿಂಗಿಸು, ನೀರೆರೆ

Examples of slake in a sentence

  • Tarzan went to the brook first, and slaked his thirst.1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 118:
  • Before the transformation takes / And blood lust tanks and crave gets slaked2006, “Wolf Like Me”, in Return to Cookie Mountain, performed by TV on the Radio:
  • Europeans’ labour requirements in the New World were also slaked by slaves from Africa.2017, Jason Hickel, The Divide […] , London: William Heinemann, →ISBN:
  • [Concerning] Fenham Slakes, Mr Bolam procured from the Rev.1879, Berwickshire Naturalists' Club (Scotland), History of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, Instituted September 22, 1831, page 530:

All 11 example sentences with slake

Synonyms of slake

Forms of slake

Verb
third-person singular presentslakes
present participleslaking
past participleslaked
pastslaked
Noun
pluralslakes

Past tense of slake: slaked

Origin of slake

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”).

Probably connected with Icelandic sleikja, "to lick", and German schlecken (“to lick”).

Words formed from slake

Phrases with slake

Words that rhyme with slake

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about slake

What does slake mean?
Slake means to satisfy (thirst, or other desires).
What is slake in Urdu?
Slake in Urdu is بھگونا, بجھانا, روک تھام کرنا. See Slake meaning in Urdu.
How do you use slake in a sentence?
Tarzan went to the brook first, and slaked his thirst.
What part of speech is slake?
Slake can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce slake?
Slake is pronounced /sleɪk/ (UK).
What is the past tense of slake?
The past tense of slake is slaked.

Words near slake in the dictionary

  1. slaisters
  2. slaistery
  3. slaistry
  4. Slaithwaite
  5. slakable
  6. slake
  7. slake trough
  8. slake troughs
  9. slakeable
  10. slaked
  11. slaked lime

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: slake (page history and authors); slake (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); slake (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); slake (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); slake (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-slake.wav.

Cite this entry: “slake.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/slake. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.