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Relent vs Subside - What's the difference?

relent | subside |

As verbs the difference between relent and subside

is that relent is to become less severe or intense; to become less hard, harsh, or cruel; to soften in temper; to become more mild and tender; to feel compassion while subside is to sink or fall to the bottom; to settle, as lees.

As a noun relent

is stay; stop; delay.

relent

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • Stay; stop; delay.

    • Derived terms

    * relentless

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To become less severe or intense; to become less hard, harsh, or cruel; to soften in temper; to become more mild and tender; to feel compassion.
    • He relented of his plan to murder his opponent, and decided just to teach him a lesson instead.
    I did, I suppose, hope that she might finally relent a little and make some conciliatory response or other. (from "The Remains of the Day"? by Kazuo Ishiguro)
  • * Shakespeare
    • Can you behold / My sighs and tears, and will not once relent ?
  • To slacken; to abate.
    • We waited for the storm to relent before we ventured outside.
    He will not relent in his effort to reclaim his victory.
  • (obsolete) To lessen, make less severe or fast.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.iv:
    • But nothing might relent her hastie flight; / So deepe the deadly feare of that foule swaine / Was earst impressed in her gentle spright [...].
  • (dated) To become less rigid or hard; to soften; to yield; to dissolve; to melt; to deliquesce.
  • * Boyle
    • [Salt of tartar] placed in a cellar will begin to relent .
  • * Alexander Pope
    • When opening buds salute the welcome day, / And earth, relenting , feels the genial ray.

    subside

    English

    Verb

    (subsid)
  • To sink or fall to the bottom; to settle, as lees.
  • To tend downward; to become lower; to descend; to sink.
  • To fall into a state of quiet; to cease to rage; to be calmed; to settle down; to become tranquil; to abate.
  • :
  • *
  • *:Long after his cigar burnt bitter, he sat with eyes fixed on the blaze. When the flames at last began to flicker and subside , his lids fluttered, then drooped?; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown kneeling on the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals,.