different between lighten vs quench

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?la?.t?n/
• Rhymes: -a?t?n

Etymology 1

From Middle English lightnen, equivalent to light +? -en.

Verb

lighten (third-person singular simple present lightens, present participle lightening, simple past and past participle lightened)

1. (transitive) To make brighter or clearer; to illuminate.
   • 1667, John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, London: Henry Herringman, stanza 231, p. 59,^[1]

     A Key of fire ran all along the shore,

     And lighten’d all the river with the blaze:

2. (intransitive) To become brighter or clearer; to brighten.
3. (intransitive, archaic) To burst forth or dart, as lightning; to shine with, or like, lightning; to flash.
   • 1595, George Peele, The Old Wives’ Tale, The Malone Society Reprints, 1908, line 500,^[2]

     Enter the Conjurer; it lightens and thunders […]

   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 3,^[3]

     […] this dreadful night,

     That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars

     As doth the lion.

4. (transitive) To emit or disclose in, or as if in, lightning; to flash out, like lightning.
   • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, Richard II, Act III, Scene 3,^[4]

     […] behold his eye,

     As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth

     Controlling majesty:

5. To illuminate with knowledge; to enlighten.
   • 1599, John Davies, “Of the Soule of man, and the immortalitie thereof” in Nosce Teipsum. This Oracle Expounded in Two Elegies, London: John Standish, p. 10,^[5]

     O Light which mak’st the Light, which makes the Day,

     Which setst the Eye without and Mind within,

     Lighten my spirit with one cleare heavenly ray,

     Which now to view it selfe doth first begin.

Conjugation

Derived terms

• lighten up

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English lightnen, equivalent to light +? -en.

Verb

lighten (third-person singular simple present lightens, present participle lightening, simple past and past participle lightened)

1. (transitive) To alleviate; to reduce the burden of.

2. (transitive) To make light or lighter in weight.
3. (transitive) To make less serious or more cheerful.
   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Psalms 34:5,^[6]

     They looked unto him, were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed.

4. (intransitive) To become light or lighter in weight.
5. (intransitive) To become less serious or more cheerful.

Conjugation

Derived terms

• lighten up

Translations

Etymology 3

From light +? -en.

Verb

lighten (third-person singular simple present lightens, present participle lightening, simple past and past participle lightened)

1. To descend; to light.
   • Book of Common Prayer

     O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us.

Related terms

• alight

Anagrams

• enlight, lething

English

Etymology

From Middle English quenchen, from Old English cwen?an, acwen?an, from Proto-Germanic *kwankijan?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kw?nt??/
• Rhymes: -?nt?

Verb

quench (third-person singular simple present quenches, present participle quenching, simple past and past participle quenched)

1. (transitive) To satisfy, especially an actual or figurative thirst.
   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 4

     I began also to feel very hungry, as not having eaten for twenty-four hours; and worse than that, there was a parching thirst and dryness in my throat, and nothing with which to quench it.

   Synonyms: appease, slake

2. (transitive) To extinguish or put out (as a fire or light).
3. (transitive, metallurgy) To cool rapidly by dipping into a bath of coolant, as a blacksmith quenching hot iron.

4. (transitive, chemistry) To terminate or greatly diminish (a chemical reaction) by destroying or deforming the remaining reagents.
5. (transitive, physics) To rapidly change the parameters of a physical system.
6. (transitive, physics) To rapidly terminate the operation of a superconducting electromagnet by causing part or all of the magnet's windings to enter the normal, resistive state.

Translations

Noun

quench (plural quenches)

1. (physics) The abnormal termination of operation of a superconducting magnet, occurring when part of the superconducting coil enters the normal (resistive) state.
2. (physics) A rapid change of the parameters of a physical system.