What's the difference between slacken and slicken?
Slacken
Definition:
(a.) To become slack; to be made less tense, firm, or rigid; to decrease in tension; as, a wet cord slackens in dry weather.
(a.) To be remiss or backward; to be negligent.
(a.) To lose cohesion or solidity by a chemical combination with water; to slake; as, lime slacks.
(a.) To abate; to become less violent.
(a.) To lose rapidity; to become more slow; as, a current of water slackens.
(a.) To languish; to fail; to flag.
(a.) To end; to cease; to desist; to slake.
(v. t.) To render slack; to make less tense or firm; as, to slack a rope; to slacken a bandage.
(v. t.) To neglect; to be remiss in.
(v. t.) To deprive of cohesion by combining chemically with water; to slake; as, to slack lime.
(v. t.) To cause to become less eager; to repress; to make slow or less rapid; to retard; as, to slacken pursuit; to slacken industry.
(v. t.) To cause to become less intense; to mitigate; to abate; to ease.
(n.) A spongy, semivitrifled substance which miners or smelters mix with the ores of metals to prevent their fusion.
Example Sentences:
(1) Torque pulses (of 10 or 100 msec) injected randomly to load or unload the movements stretched or slackened the appropiate prime movers: biceps or triceps.
(2) Although the rate of growth has slackened somewhat during recent years, the private pension movement is now a major contributor to the income maintenance needs of the American worker during retirement.
(3) While the slackening of the woof and the dimension of the meshes are minimal at both the beginning and end of the cycle, they reach a maximum on forteenth day.
(4) Increasing doses led to a negative inotropic effect with slackened relaxation and loss of its load sensitivity (up to 390 mumol l-1 for sulmazole; up to 350 mumol-1 for theophylline).
(5) Our findings suggest a mechanism eventually leading to slackening of the cervical spine ligamentous apparatus and atlantoaxial subluxation in RA.
(6) The result is diminished uterine volume and slackening of the myometrium.
(7) This also raises the question to what extent these fears become manifest because of a slackening of the defence mechanisms.
(8) The collagen fibres in this case stretch out and the skin tension slackens.
(9) The potential for slackened physician-patient relationships, however, could jeopardize that quality.
(10) One is the mobilization of a global effort to develop and test technologies, where the available technologies are not satisfactory to meet the needs and where the research is slackening.
(11) Blepharochalasis implies the symptom or general term (Kettesy) applied to the slackening and thinning out of the upper lid.
(12) After strong growth in the first six months of the year, the pace of growth in manufacturing has also slackened as a result of weaker demand from key markets including Europe and China.” Taken as a whole the UK’s economy is now 3.4% above its pre-crisis peak in the first quarter of 2008.
(13) 10 (11 p.cent) died within one month of surgery, but slackening of the sutures was an attributable cause in none of these cases.
(14) So over the coming months, far from slackening, you'll see the rate of change and reform at the BBC go faster and deeper.
(15) The Tumble is hard but it slackens off after a couple of kilometres so it’s hard to pull out a lot of time.
(16) Vmax was also determined by a procedure in which the cell length was slackened and the time of unloaded shortening was recorded (slack test).
(17) The sales pattern of the aerosols altered, showing a slackening of the rate of increase of sales in 1966 and 1967.
(18) Its growth rate and cellular structure were observed over the subsequent 19 months, the former remaining constant for the first 14 months, then slackening markedly during the final 4 months.
(19) On debt and taxation, rich and poor countries are worlds apart | Tove Maria Ryding Read more “Already, several countries have turned to multilateral lending institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank, in order to obtain financial assistance: Angola, Azerbaijan, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe have already asked for bailouts or are in talks to do so.” The trade and development report said that against a backdrop of falling commodity prices and slackening growth in the developed world, borrowing costs for poor countries had been “driven up very quickly, turning what seemed reasonable debt burdens under favourable conditions into largely unsustainable debt.
(20) In another welcome sign of rebalancing, exports to non-EU countries were up by 3.5% ( full details here ) Photograph: ISTAT 9.25am BST Draghi is also warning that eurozone governments must not slacken off the pace of reform - a familiar refrain for the ECB chief: Thanks to their consolidation efforts so far, the primary fiscal deficit for the euro area has fallen from 3.5% of GDP in 2009 to around 0.5% in 2012.
Slicken
Definition:
(a.) Sleek; smooth.
Example Sentences:
(1) Residents were preparing for a storm that threatened to slicken highways, freeze power lines – and leave them stranded through the weekend.