RELENT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does relent mean? 

• RELENT (verb)
  The verb RELENT has 1 sense:

1. give in, as to influence or pressure

  Familiarity information: RELENT used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RELENT (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they relent    ... he / she / it relents   
Past simple: relented   
Past participle: relented   
-ing form: relenting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Give in, as to influence or pressure

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

relent; soften; yield

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "relent"):

truckle (yield to out of weakness)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s

Sentence example:

Sam and Sue relent

 Context examples 

“Oh me, oh me!” exclaimed the wretched Emily, in a tone that might have touched the hardest heart, I should have thought; but there was no relenting in Rosa Dartle's smile.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He just stood looking at her so wistfully, so tenderly, that she found her heart relenting in spite of herself.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

To her surprise the body rose easily, and she knew Hans had relented and was helping her.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

“Here he is, master,” said he, “I have got the better of him”: and when the farmer saw his old servant, his heart relented, and he said.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I relented. "No," said I, "I do not."

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

No; but she might suppose that something would occur in your favour; that your own family might in time relent.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Fanny thought she discerned in his standing there an indication of relenting, which encouraged her to another attempt, and she said, therefore, It is a pity you should not join them.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Mr. Knightley could not impute to Emma a more relenting heart than she possessed, or a heart more disposed to accept of his.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

He waited in vain for some backward glance or sign of relenting, but she walked on with a rigid neck until her dress was only a white flutter among the leaves.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the first: latterly she had begun to relent a little; and when she saw me come in tidy and well-dressed, she even smiled.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)