Search the Dictionary

Having a tendency to loosen or relax. Milton.

Relaxing; emollient; softening; assuasive; -- some "Lenient of grief." Milton. Of relax the fibers, are lenient, balsamic. Arbuthnot. Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand. Pope.

To relax; to loosen; to make less strict. The joints of his loins were loosed. Dan. v. 6.

Softening; relaxing. [Obs.]

Hence: To soften, as by a warming or kindly influence; to relax; to render gentle or susceptible to mild influences; sometimes, in a bad sense, to take away the firmness of; to weaken. Thou would'st have . . . melted down thy youth. Shak. For pity melts the mind to love. Dryden.

ion, desires, etc.; to moderate heat or wind. By its astringent quality, it moderates the relaxing quality of warm water. Arbuthnot. To moderate stiff minds disposed to strive. Spenser.

Designating certain morbid conditions, as hemorrhage or dropsy, characterized by relaxation of the vessels and tissues, with deficient vitality and lack of reaction in the affected tissues. Passive congestion (Med.), congestion due to obstruction to the return of the blood from the affected part. -- Passive iron (Chem…

A peg in musical instruments, for increasing or relaxing the tension of the strings.

bstance, to be applied to sores, inflamed parts of the body, etc.; a cataplasm. "Poultice relaxeth the pores." Bacon.

Inversion and prolapse of the mucous coat of the rectum, from relaxation of the sphincter, with more or less swelling; prolapsus ani. Dunglison.

To loosen; to relax; to remove the obligation of; as, to release an ordinance. [Obs.] Hooker. A sacred vow that none should aye Spenser.

Diminution of intensity; abatement; relaxation.

To relax in intensity; to make less violent; to abate. So willingly doth God remit his ire. Milton.

The state of being relaxed; relaxation. [Obs.]

Serving to dissolve or relax. [R.] Johnson.

To relax; to lay at ease. [Obs.] B. Jonson. To resolve a nebula.(Astron.) See Resolution of a nebula, under Resolution.

Crowded; compact; dense; pressed together. Nor seemed it to relax their serried files. Milton.

An oppressive, relaxing wind from the Libyan deserts, chiefly experienced in Italy, Malta, and Sicily.

To slacken; to become relaxed. "When the body's strongest sinews slake." [R.] Sir J. Davies.

s held; -- so called from its being made in such a manner as to slip, or become loose, by relaxation of the hand. We stalked over the extensive plains with Killbuck and Lena in the slips, in search of deer. Sir S. Baker.