Other forms: slaked, slaking
To slake is to satisfy a thirst or a craving. Slake his thirst, slake their curiosity, nothing could slake it.
It appears almost only with thirst, and there it is faintly literary. In building, slaking lime means adding water to quicklime, which boils and gives off great heat — the same word, and the reaction that makes mortar. It comes from slack.
1verbslakeTo satisfy a thirst or a craving.
“After the long hike, we slaked our thirst with cold water from the stream.”
slake is a satisfying.
Middle English slaken comes from Old English slaec, slack. To slake was first to make slack or loosen.
Old English
sleacian
Middle English
slaken — to render slack, to slake
English, today
slake
From Middle English slaken (“to render slack, to slake”), from Old English sleacian, from Old English slæc (“slack”). Unrelated to, but possibly influenced by, the Old Norse sløkkva (“to extinguish”), compare Swedish släcka in the phrase släcka sin törst (“quench one's thirst”), släcka elden (“put out the fire”), and släckt kalk (“slaked lime”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA