quench
/kwɛn(t)ʃ
/verb [with object]
1Satisfy (one’s thirst) by drinking.He no longer quenches his thirst by drinking sodas....
- On the way back, we stopped at that McDonald's, just to get frozen drinks to quench our thirsts.
- We moved back to the bar joking and laughing, and ordered drinks to quench our thirst.
1.1Satisfy (a desire): he only pursued her to quench an aching need...
- The ladies were spotted at El Tiempo, where Sharon quenched her Tex-Mex cravings, and at Trellis Spa at the Houstonian, where they indulged in massages.
- Human taste requires variety and something should be done to quench this yearning for variety in the desert they are wandering in.
- Later, a trip alongside the Black Sea helped quench Sorokin's inexhaustible desire to travel.
Synonyms
satisfy, slake, sate, satiate, gratify, relieve, assuage, take the edge off, appease, meet, fulfil, indulge;
lessen, deaden, decrease, lower, reduce, diminish, curb, check, still, damp;
suppress, extinguish, smother, stifle, overcome
2Extinguish (a fire): firemen hauled on hoses in a desperate bid to quench the flames...
- The couple used domestic fire extinguishers to quench the flames in the Georgian house on the Lee Road.
- Workers reacted quickly, calling the fire brigade, although the fire was quenched using extinguishers, before the fire officers arrived.
- Many years ago, my father told me that at the English College in Rome, young would-be priests were told about the pagan legend of the Salamander - the mythical lizard that walked into fire and quenched the flames by the power of its virtue.
Synonyms
extinguish, put out, snuff out, smother, douse, dampen down
2.1Stifle or suppress (a feeling): fury rose in him, but he quenched it...
- I could think over what I felt towards him, to try and find a way to quench those irritating feelings that nagged consistently at my mind.
- Even more surprising is the way we quench our feelings of guilt.
- Even the terrifying thought of Max's hatred didn't quench her hopes.
2.2 dated Reduce (someone) to silence: she quenched Anne by a curt command to hold her tongue
3Rapidly cool (red-hot metal or other material), especially in cold water or oil.After being annealed, the work metal is quenched in water to free it from particles of the salt mixture....
- If red hot steel is quenched in a hot decoction of mullein that preparation is useful for treating bleeding dysentery as well as increasing urination.
- After holding for selected periods of time, the specimens are withdrawn from the bath and rapidly quenched in cold water.
3.1 Physics & Electronics Suppress or damp (an effect such as luminescence, or an oscillation or discharge).Stimulated emission with a beam that is red-shifted with respect to the excitation wavelength can quench the fluorescence of the excited molecules....
- Binding of chelatable Fe gradually quenches fluorescence until a steady state level of fluorescence is reached.
- Although they cannot be distinguished in the absorbance spectra, the lower exciton states provide an efficient way to deactivate the upper singlet state and to quench fluorescence.
noun
An act of quenching a very hot substance.It should be noted, however, that this is not altogether advantageous, since the direction, as well as the magnitude, of the stress existing after the quench, is important in relation to cracking....
- Similar structures are often observed in lower carbon steels as quenched, as a result of the formation of Fe 3 C during the quench.
- Gases flow from the secondary combustion chamber through the quench chamber, and then through air pollution control devices to remove acid gases and particulates.
Derivatives
quenchable
- His religion, together with a barely quenchable self-belief, regardless of the difficulties he faced, brought ‘an almost amoral’ quality to his life.
- The stability of sterol-enriched domains in mixed lipid bilayers was studied by determining the fraction of CTL emission that was quenchable by 12SLPC (a quencher located outside the L o domains) as a function of temperature.
- Those who do will hear about people with an insatiable but never quenchable longing for the other, such as Feuer Und Wasser (Fire and Water), the power of primeval instincts of Zerstoren and fatal misunderstandings in Spring.
quencher
- Upon primer-mediated DNA synthesis of the gene targets, the scorpion probes hybridize to the newly formed complementary sequences, separating the fluorescent reporters from the quenchers thus restoring the fluorescence.
- It is clearly indicated from Tables 1 and 2 that k q values do not correlate with the pK b values of the amine quenchers.
- We used two dibromo lipids as quenchers.
quenchless
- In the angle of the obdurate outthrust jaw, buckwheat-flecked from the morning meal, one read quenchless resolve, a nature scornful of compromise and dedicated to squeezing the last nickel out of any enterprise.
- With a quenchless and intense desire, he prayed that they might be brought into the fold.
- For much of this time he was tired and in poor health, but a characteristic zest for life and a quenchless curiosity never deserted him; to a packed audience in a seminar in Urbana in the spring of 1984 he spoke about mathematical economics.
Origin
Old English -cwencan (in acwencan 'put out, extinguish'), of Germanic origin.