quench

verb

1. (transitive)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[…]”

   “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.”

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, […]”

   ““From here you will see which one of us two stands up...when the fiery vomit is quenched.””

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.”

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.”

   “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 for the integrity of the magnet, and in the worse^([sic]) case you might find yourself with a lot of high-quality scrap metal.”

noun

1. 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.”

2. The abnormal termination of operation of a superconducting magnet, occurring when part of the superconducting coil enters the normal (resistive) state.
3. A rapid change of the parameters of a physical system.