Quench Meaning
/kwɛnt͡ʃ/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo satisfy, especially a literal or figurative thirst.
verbTo extinguish or put out (as a fire or light).
Sentence Examples
I had a glass of beer to quench my thirst.
I quench my thirst with a cold glass of water.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
CEFR Practice Quiz
After running a marathon, he drank a full bottle of water to ____ his intense thirst.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She stopped at the fountain to ____ her thirst after the long run through the park.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English quenchen, from Old English cwenċan, from Proto-Germanic *kwankijaną.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The wearie Traueiler, wandring that way, / Therein did often quench his thriſty heat, / And then by it his wearie limbes diſplay, / Whiles creeping ſlomber made him to forget[…]"
— 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 254:
"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."
— [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC:
"[…] others ſaying, the fire would ceaſe as ſoon as it had vent, uncovered a great part of the houſe, breaking down the roofs, and destroying all that ſtood in their way. None of them went about to quench the fire, but all were employed in pulling down the houſe, […]"
— 1798, Francisco de Quevedo, anonymous translator, Fortune in Her Wits, and the Hour of All Men, volume 3, Edinburgh, translation of La fortuna con seso, y La hora de todos (in Spanish), pages 130–131:
"“From here you will see which one of us two stands up...when the fiery vomit is quenched.”"
— 1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 44:
"A suitable method to prepare a system out of equilibrium in order to study the ensuing dynamics is to quench the system, i.e., to change its parameters abruptly."
— 2018, P. Bleicker and G. S. Uhrig, “Strong quenches in the one-dimensional Fermi-Hubbard model”, in Physical Review A, volume 98, →DOI, page 1:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
After running a marathon, he drank a full bottle of water to ____ his intense thirst.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She stopped at the fountain to ____ her thirst after the long run through the park.