The story
- Latin · derived fromrelaxāre“relax, loosen, open”
- Old French · derived fromrelaxer
- Middle English · inherited fromrelaxen
- English todayrelax
From Middle English relaxen, from Old French relaxer, from Latin relaxāre (“relax, loosen, open”), from re- (“back”) + laxāre (“loosen”), from laxus (“loose, free”). By surface analysis, re- + lax (“open, free, loose”).
Words from the same roots
Latinrelaxāre all →
relish
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.