What's the difference between slacken and weaken?

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.

Weaken


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To make weak; to lessen the strength of; to deprive of strength; to debilitate; to enfeeble; to enervate; as, to weaken the body or the mind; to weaken the hands of a magistrate; to weaken the force of an objection or an argument.
  • (v. t.) To reduce in quality, strength, or spirit; as, to weaken tea; to weaken any solution or decoction.
  • (v. i.) To become weak or weaker; to lose strength, spirit, or determination; to become less positive or resolute; as, the patient weakened; the witness weakened on cross-examination.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Now, as the Senate takes up a weakened House bill along with the House's strengthened backdoor-proof amendment, it's time to put focus back on sweeping reform.
  • (2) The use of functional test with the ACTH administration demonstrated organic affection of the CNS to sharply aggravate the weakening and even the exhaustion of the functional reserves of the glomerular and the reticular zones of the adrenal cortex developing during thyrotoxicosis, and also the reserve possibilities of the sympathico-adrenal system.
  • (3) If Lagarde had been placed under formal investigation in the Tapie case, it would have risked weakening her position and further embarrassing both the IMF and France by heaping more judicial worries on a key figure on the international stage.
  • (4) The stronger negative potentials may weaken electrostatic receptor interactions and, thereby, cause the trans(E)-isomers to be less active than cis(Z)-isomers.
  • (5) We found that the closer location of Mg2+ to the beta-phosphoryl group than to the alpha- or gamma-phosphoryl group was effective in weakening the P-O bond at which the cleavage of ATP catalyzed by most enzymes takes place.
  • (6) Extracellular potassium increases this component of the potassium current as a result of weakening of its inactivation.
  • (7) Moreover, the effect of its administration gradually weakens with repeating of the stress inducing experiment, and propiopromazine itself may act as a stress inducing factor.
  • (8) He was accused of disrespecting the FA Cup with such a weakened team but he mounted a strong defence, referencing the club’s seven injuries that have left him with only 13 fit senior outfield players.
  • (9) sec.-1); b) an enhancement of fast (15-25 Hz) oscillations in the cortical spontaneous electrical activity and weakening and modification of the effects of the blockader of synthesis of MA-alpha-methyl-dioxiphenylalanine.
  • (10) The muscle weakening procedures by the traditional recession should be avoided.
  • (11) Repeated flashes above a few per second do not so much cause fatigue of the VEPs as reduce or prevent them by a sustained inhibition; large late waves are released as a rebound excitation any time the train of flashes stops or is delayed or sufficiently weakened.
  • (12) Levin and Merkley said Wall Street has successfully managed to weaken the rule.
  • (13) Any process which weakens the cartilaginous endplate or the subchondral cancellous bone may predispose to the development of Schmorl's nodes.
  • (14) The dumping-syndrome is a severe complication of gastric surgery after operations which destroy or weaken the sphincter mechanism of the pylorus.
  • (15) The destabilization of the red cell membrane skeleton in the presence of crude iHCR is caused by release of hemin, which lowers the stability of membrane skeleton by weakening the spectrin-protein 4.1-actin interaction.
  • (16) We therefore conclude that in postrigor muscles, paratropomyosin is released from the A-I junction region following the increase in the sarcoplasmic calcium ion concentration to 10(-4) M, and then binds to thin filaments, which results in weakening of rigor linkages formed between actin and myosin.
  • (17) Companies like Origin and EnergyAustralia are pushing to weaken the target not, as they like to claim, because that would be good for customers, but because a weaker target is better for their bottom line,” Connor said.
  • (18) The centrally generated ;effort' or direct voluntary command to motoneurones required to lift a weight was studied using a simple weight-matching task when the muscles lifting a reference weight were weakened.
  • (19) One possibility is that the membrane of dystrophic muscle is weakened and becomes leaky to Ca2+.
  • (20) David Cameron thought that the SNP would weaken Labour north of the border.