Verb

(head)

* {{quote-book, year=1914, author=Charles Warren Stoddard, title=Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=I was glad when we were very politely invited to get out of the train and walk a plank over a puddle that for a moment submerged the track; glad when we were advised to foot it over a trestle-bridge that sagged in the swift current of a swollen stream; and gladder still when our locomotive began to puff and blow and slaken its pace as we climbed up into the mouth of a ravine fragrant with the warm scents of summer--albeit we could boast but a solitary brace of cars, and these small ones, and not overcrowded at that. }}

* {{quote-book, year=1901, author=Charles Kingsley, title=Two Years Ago, Volume I, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=And so she swept in, with her arm round Lucia's waist; while Elsley stood looking after her, well enough satisfied with her reception of him, and only hoping that the stream of words would slaken after a while. " }}

Verb

(en verb)

To make loose.

to loosen a knot

After the Thanksgiving meal, Bill loosened his belt.

* Francis Bacon

After a year's rooting, then shaking doth the tree good by loosening of the earth.

To free from restraint; to set at liberty.

* Dryden

It loosens his hands, and assists his understanding.

To remove costiveness from; to facilitate or increase the alvine discharges of.

(Francis Bacon)