The story
- Old English · inherited fromāslacian“to become slack, decline, diminish, grow tired, make slack, loosen, relax, dissolve”
- Middle English · inherited fromaslaken
- English todayaslake
From Middle English aslaken, from Old English āslacian (“to become slack, decline, diminish, grow tired, make slack, loosen, relax, dissolve”), equivalent to a- + slake.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.