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say it: slak
slack is a verb, noun and adjective meaning "avoid responsibilities and work, be idle". It is pronounced /ˈslæk/ — slak. It carries 17 recorded senses.
avoid responsibilities and work, be idle
make less active or fast
“He slackened his pace as he got tired”
“Don't relax your efforts now”
dust consisting of a mixture of small coal fragments and coal dust and dirt that sifts out when coal is passed over a sieve
a noticeable deterioration in performance or quality
“the team went into a slump”
“a gradual slack in output”
“a drop-off in attendance”
“a falloff in quality”
a stretch of water without current or movement
“suddenly they were in a slack and the water was motionless”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for slack come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.