slake

verb

1. (transitive)To satisfy (thirst, or other desires).

   “slake the heavenly fire”

   “It could not slake mine ire nor ease my heart.”

   “Tyrian garbs, / Neptunian Albion's high teſtaceous food [i.e., oysters], / And flavour'd Chian wines with incenſe fum'd / To ſlake Patrician thirſt: for theſe, their rights / In the vile ſtreets they proſtitute to ſale; / Their ancient rights, their dignities, their laws, / Their native glorious freedom.”

   “Tarzan went to the brook first, and slaked his thirst. Then he approached his cabin.”

   “The booths of the publicans gazed shamelessly at the sun, with two empty porter barrels as supports at their doors, ready to smile at their clients with their seductive roundness, ready to lure the thirsty islanders into the gloomy recesses beneath the canvas, where Mulligan's assistant or Mrs Moroney's assistant would hand out frothy pints of porter and glistening tumblers of whisky to slake the thirst and set the blood tingling.”

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.”

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.”

7. (intransitive, obsolete)To become less intense; to weaken, decrease in force.
8. (intransitive, obsolete)To go out; to become extinct.

   “His flame did slake.”

9. (Scotland, transitive)To besmear.

noun

1. (Scotland)A sloppy mess.
2. 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[…]”

   “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.”

   “[Concerning] Fenham Slakes, Mr Bolam procured from the Rev. W. W. F. Keeling, of the vicarage, Holy Island, the information that "Thomas Bowey, over at the Beacons, shot on the slakes a young one, rather small for a Swan[…]"”