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t selection or specification. -- To let run (Naut.), to allow to pass or move freely; to slacken or loosen. -- To run after, to pursue or follow; to search for; to endeavor to find or obtain; as to run after similies. Locke. -- To run away, to flee; to escape; to elope; to run without control or guidance. -- To run…

ry, with butter, lard, pot liquor, or the like. To shorten a rope (Naut.), to take in the slack of it. -- To shorten sail (Naut.), to reduce sail by taking it in.

ath the yoke. Shak. He sunk down in his chariot. 2 Kings ix. 24. Let not the fire sink or slacken. Mortimer.

The slack part of a sail. Slab line (Naut.), a line or small rope by which seamen haul up the foot of the mainsail or foresail. Totten.

To mix with water, so that a true chemical combination shall take place; to slack; as, to slake lime.

Slacken.

The loose or slack part of a rope; slack.

To render slow; to slacken the speed of; to retard; to delay; as, to slow a steamer. Shak.

A line led from a vessel's quarter to her cable so that by tightening or slacking it she can be made to lie in any desired position; a line led diagonally from the bow or stern of a vessel to some point upon the wharf to which she is moored. Air spring, Boiling spring, etc. See under Air, Boiling, etc. -- Spring back…

A slackening or arrest of the blood current in the vessels, due not to a lessening of the heart's beat, but presumably to some abnormal resistance of the capillary walls. It is one of the phenomena observed in the capillaries in inflammation.

unrising. Deut. iv. 47 (Rev. Ver.) Full hot and fast the Saxon rides, with rein of travel slack, And, bending o'ev his saddle, leaves the sunrise at his back. Whittier.

To let go or slacken suddenly, as a rope; as, to surge a hawser or messenger; also, to slacken the rope about (a capstan).

To tighten, as slack standing rigging, by bringing the opposite shrouds nearer.

t motion, as in a bearing; also, to make tight, as by winding, or drawing; as, to take up slack thread in sewing. (r) To make up; to compose; to settle; as, to take up a quarrel. [Obs.] Shak. -- To take up arms. Same as To take arms, above. -- To take upon one's self. (a) To assume; to undertake; as, he takes upon hi…

which takes up or tightens; specifically, a device in a sewing machine for drawing up the slack thread as the needle rises, in completing a stitch.

Tight; stretched; not slack; -- said esp. of a rope that is tightly strained.

Not slack or loose; firmly stretched; taut; -- applied to a rope, chain, or the like, extended or stretched out.

Not slaked; unslacked; as, an unslaked thirst; unslaked lime.

urn; to wear; as, to veer, or wear, a vessel. To veer and haul (Naut.), to pull tight and slacken alternately. Totten. -- To veer away or out (Naut.), to let out; to slacken and let run; to pay out; as, to veer away the cable; to veer out a rope.

ury. (d) To tighten (the strings) of a musical instrument, so as to tune it. "Wind up the slackened strings of thy lute." Waller.