Library / English Dictionary

SLACKEN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make slack as by lessening tension or firmness

Synonyms:

remit; slacken

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "slacken" is one way to...):

loose; loosen (make loose or looser)

Cause:

slacken (become looser or slack)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "slacken"):

douse; dowse (slacken)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

slackening (an occurrence of control or strength weakening)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Become looser or slack

Example:

the rope slackened

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "slacken" is one way to...):

weaken (become weaker)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Also:

slacken off (become less intense)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Become slow or slower

Example:

Production slowed

Synonyms:

slack; slacken; slow; slow down; slow up

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "slacken" is one way to...):

weaken (become weaker)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s

Sense 4

Meaning:

Make less active or fast

Example:

Don't relax your efforts now

Synonyms:

relax; slack; slack up; slacken

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "slacken" is one way to...):

decrease; lessen; minify (make smaller)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Credits

 Context examples: 

The play-hour in the evening I thought the pleasantest fraction of the day at Lowood: the bit of bread, the draught of coffee swallowed at five o'clock had revived vitality, if it had not satisfied hunger: the long restraint of the day was slackened; the schoolroom felt warmer than in the morning—its fires being allowed to burn a little more brightly, to supply, in some measure, the place of candles, not yet introduced: the ruddy gloaming, the licensed uproar, the confusion of many voices gave one a welcome sense of liberty.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

When I offered to slacken my pace, he would cry hhuun hhuun: I guessed his meaning, and gave him to understand, as well as I could, that I was weary, and not able to walk faster; upon which he would stand awhile to let me rest.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

You see, sir, he went on, if once we dropped to leeward of the landing-place, it's hard to say where we should get ashore, besides the chance of being boarded by the gigs; whereas, the way we go the current must slacken, and then we can dodge back along the shore.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Now he studied the sea to windward for signs of the wind slackening or freshening, now the Macedonia; and again, his eyes roved over every sail, and he gave commands to slack a sheet here a trifle, to come in on one there a trifle, till he was drawing out of the Ghost the last bit of speed she possessed.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I discovered nothing all that day; but upon the next, about three in the afternoon, when I had by my computation made twenty-four leagues from Blefuscu, I descried a sail steering to the south-east; my course was due east. I hailed her, but could get no answer; yet I found I gained upon her, for the wind slackened.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Just while I was meditating, a puff came, caught the HISPANIOLA, and forced her up into the current; and to my great joy, I felt the hawser slacken in my grasp, and the hand by which I held it dip for a second under water.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

At night when the sun went down, the sheets were slackened; in the morning, when they yielded up the damp of the dew and relaxed, they were pulled tight again—and that was all.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)