Verb

(es)

To calm down.

To make something loose.

to relax''' a rope or cord; to '''relax the muscles or sinews

* Milton

Horror all his joints relaxed .

To become loose.

To make something less severe or tense.

to relax''' discipline; to '''relax one's attention or endeavours

To become less severe or tense.

To make something (such as codes and regulations) more lenient.

* Jonathan Swift

The stature of mortmain was at several times relaxed by the legislature.

{{quote-book

, year=1953 , author=Edward Corwin , title=The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation , chapter=Section 2. Jurisdiction citation , page=589 , passage=The Court rejected the contention that the doctrine of sovereign immunity should be relaxed as inapplicable to suits for specific relief as distinguished from damage suits, saying: "The Government, as representative of the community as a whole, cannot be stopped in its tracks by any plaintiff who presents a disputed question of property or contract right."}}

(of codes and regulations) To become more lenient.

To relieve (something) from stress.

Amusement relaxes the mind.

(dated) To relieve from constipation; to loosen; to open.

An aperient relaxes the bowels.

Verb

To bring down the size, quantity, quality, value or intensity of something; to diminish, to lower, to impair.

* to reduce weight, speed, heat, expenses, price, personnel etc.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01

, author=Stephen Ledoux , title=Behaviorism at 100 , volume=100, issue=1, page=60 , magazine= citation , passage=Becoming more aware of the progress that scientists have made on behavioral fronts can reduce the risk that other natural scientists will resort to mystical agential accounts when they exceed the limits of their own disciplinary training.}}

To lose weight.

To bring to an inferior rank; to degrade, to demote.

* to reduce a sergeant to the ranks

* An ancient but reduced family. --.

* Nothing so excellent but a man may fasten upon something belonging to it, to reduce it. --.

* Having reduced their foe to misery beneath their fears. -- .

* Hester Prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced . --.

*

Neither [Jones] nor I (in 1966) could conceive of reducing our "science" to the ultimate absurdity of reading Finnish newspapers almost a century and a half old in order to establish "priority."

To humble; to conquer; to subdue; to capture.

* to reduce a province or a fort

To bring to an inferior state or condition.

* to reduce a city to ashes

(cooking) To decrease the liquid content of food by boiling much of its water off.

(chemistry) To add electrons / hydrogen or to remove oxygen.

(metallurgy) To produce metal from ore by removing nonmetallic elements in a smelter.

(mathematics) To simplify an equation or formula without changing its value.

(legal) To convert to written form (Usage note: this verb almost always take the phrase "to writing").

* It is important that all business contracts be reduced to writing.

(medicine) To perform a reduction; to restore a fracture or dislocation to the correct alignment.

(military) To reform a line or column from (a square).