slack1
/slak
/adjective
1Not taut or held tightly in position; loose: a slack rope her mouth went slack...
- I held the slack rope taut in various positions and Jim measured and recorded the segments' lengths.
- In Compagnie Cahin Caha, director Gulko performs a near-calamitous off-balance act on the slack rope.
- It took just one heave and one ho for the rope to go slack as my former self went head over heels into the pit.
Synonyms
loose, limp, not taut, not tight, hanging, flapping;
relaxed, flexible, pliant
flaccid, flabby, loose, sagging, saggy, drooping, droopy, soft
baggy, loose-fitting, loose, not tight, generously cut, roomy;
shapeless, sack-like, oversized, ill-fitting, bagging, hanging, flapping, saggy
2Having or showing laziness or negligence: slack accounting procedures...
- They say they have no idea when or how Beggs got into the country because of slack EU border controls.
- He said his new department was slack and inefficient.
- It can never be slack or lazy; I can never assume anyone will read it just because it's there.
Synonyms
lax, negligent, neglectful, remiss, careless, slapdash, slipshod, lackadaisical, lazy, inefficient, incompetent, inattentive, offhand, casual, disorderly, disorganized;
North American derelict
informal sloppy, slap-happy, do-nothing, asleep at the wheel
British vulgar slang half-arsed
formal delinquent
rare otiose, pococurante
3Slow or sluggish: they were working at a slack pace...
- The industry is still swamped with capacity, and the slack economy has slowed demand.
- I've been through this before, selling a house into a slack, sluggish market.
- Though the pace is slack and the jokes are slim, the chemistry between Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson is as sparkly as ever.
Synonyms
sluggish, slow, quiet, slow-moving, not busy, inactive, flat, depressed, stagnant
3.1(Of business or trade) characterized by a lack of work or activity; quiet: business was rather slack...
- But getting angry with himself for making this mistake was just as fruitless as brooding over the slack business owner.
- If business is slack, plans for a new van are postponed.
- Business was slack, unusual for that time of morning.
4West Indian Lewd: the veteran king of slack chat...
- Well, I'm in one of my moods to share a slack joke again!
- We were in the Operating Room doing a case and in order to break the routine of work, we were relating a lot of slack jokes.
- Despite all of this, he can still manage to laugh and share a slack joke with me, so he is in reasonably good spirits.
4.1(Typically of a woman) promiscuous.
5(Of a tide) neither ebbing nor flowing: soon the water will become slack, and the tide will turn slack tides...
- Enter too soon before, or too long after slack tide, and we will get blown off the reef and possibly end up in a very dangerous position.
- Reeling the little Calcutta 400 quite quickly in the slack tide gave the eel just that little extra zip and fish attracting noise in the water.
- There is plenty of time for storytelling as we wait for slack tide.
noun
1The part of a rope or line which is not held taut; the loose or unused part: I picked up the rod and wound in the slack...
- But, as I rose and Pung pulled in the slack on the rope, I felt totally secure - far more confident than during my low viewpoint descent.
- With the slack in the rope, she darted forward, and pinched the bulge in her teeth, and tugged, eliciting a scream from Spade.
- A sport climber will keep falling until he is past the last quickdraw he's clipped into and all the slack in the rope is taut.
Synonyms
looseness, play, give
2 (slacks) Casual trousers: he put on a grey shirt and loose cotton slacks...
- Wear them with jeans, stylish dress slacks, drawstring pants, and cargo pants or shorts.
- You can use a hanger with clamps or slide the slacks onto a trouser rod or regular hanger.
- He wore a white cotton undershirt and blue slacks now; his eyes were bloodshot from obvious lack of sleep.
3 informal A spell of inactivity or laziness: he slept deeply, refreshed by a little slack in the daily routine...
- They deliberately built slack into middle managers' schedules.
Synonyms
lull, pause, respite, spell of inactivity, interval, break, hiatus, breathing space
informal let-up, breather
verb
1 [with object] Loosen (something, especially a rope): slacking the outhaul allows you to adjust the sail...
- The rope would tighten and then slack and then tighten, jerking Darren while all the time cutting into his already tore up wrists.
2Decrease or reduce in intensity, quantity, or speed: [no object]: the flow of blood slacked off [with object]: the horse slacked his pace...
- The team hadn't played with the intensity needed to win, we'd slacked off, and it had almost cost us a loss to the Beavers of the west.
- By slacking, you simply reduce the size of the pie that your parents will eventually divide equally.
- Gradually, the wind speed slacks, skies clear and temperatures moderate.
Synonyms
reduce, lessen, slacken, slow, ease up/off
decrease, lessen, subside, get less, let up, ease off, abate, moderate, diminish, dwindle, die down, fall off, drop off, taper off, ebb, recede, wane
relax, take things easy, let up, ease up/off, do less, loosen up, slow down, be less active
North American informal hang loose, stay loose, chill out
slow down, slow, decelerate, reduce speed, drop speed, put the brakes on
3 [no object] British informal Work slowly or lazily: she ticked off her girls if they were slacking...
- For the last two years, he has slowly slacked off and now doesn't give me anything!
- Once I realized that I'd slacked myself past the point where that would be possible, I decided to shoot for running it next year.
- My goodness Charlotte you have really been slacking these past few days, haven't you?
Synonyms
idle, shirk, be inactive, be lazy, be indolent, sit back and do nothing, waste time, lounge about
British informal skive, bunk off
North American informal goof off
4 [with object] Slake (lime): 150 sacks of lime were slacked by the inrushing water
Phrases
cut someone some slack
take (or pick) up the slack
Derivatives
slackly
/ adverb ...- An accompanying consideration was that Asian and African forms of literature may be only slackly comparable to those in the West.
- He asked me with an impolite, almost impatient lilt, as he slackly sat himself upon a tree-stump, violin in hand, hand upon knee.
- Both arms rested slackly at her sides, eyes widened, and she could just barely make out the outline of her assailant.
slackness
/ noun ...- Marshall, though, would not escape with slackness again, even if it wasn't quite so slapstick the second time round.
- Any slackness on Sunday against Tyrone and we'll be punished severely for it.
- We are putting pressure on ourselves and a bit of slackness seems to have crept into our defending at times.
Origin
Old English slæc 'inclined to be lazy, unhurried', of Germanic origin; related to Latin laxus 'loose'.
slake from Old English:
Slake and slack (Old English) share a Germanic root, slake originally meaning ‘to become less eager’ in general, before it was restricted to words such as thirst. Slack originally meant ‘lazy, unhurried’. Both words are more distantly related to Latin laxus ‘loose’, see languish
Rhymes
slack2
/slak/noun [mass noun]
Coal dust or small pieces of coal: the fire was stoked with a mixture of slack and cement...
- Previously, miners had been paid $0.39 per ton of large coal and $0.17 for riddled slack.
Origin
Late Middle English: probably from Low German or Dutch.