Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To abate; diminish.
  • To moderate; mitigate; appease; satisfy.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • verb Archaic To mitigate; to moderate; to appease; to abate; to diminish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive, intransitive To abate; diminish.
  • verb transitive, intransitive To moderate; mitigate; appease; satisfy.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English aslaken, from Old English āslacian ("to become slack, decline, diminish, grow tired, make slack, loosen, relax, dissolve"), from Proto-Germanic *uz- (“out”) + *slakōnan (“to become useless, weak, or slow”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lēg- (“soft, weak”), equivalent to a- +‎ slake. Cognate with Dutch slaken ("to heave"), Swedish sloka ("to wilt, droop"), Danish slukke ("to quench, allay, slake"). More at slake.

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Examples

  • Furies > (In later accounts, Tisiphone, Megaera, and Alecto, three goddesses who guard the gates of hell; in earlier accounts, they are avenging deities, of indeterminate number, sent from hell to punish wrongdoers) aslake > assuage; cool

    The Faerie Queene — Volume 01 Edmund Spenser

  • But this continuall cruell ciuill warre, the which my selfe against my selfe doe make: whilest my weak powres of passions warreid arre. no skill can stint nor reason can aslake.

    Amoretti and Epithalamion 1594

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