relent

1. (intransitive) To give in or be swayed; to become less hard, harsh, or cruel; to show clemency.Examples: "He had planned to ground his son for a month, but relented and decided to give him a stern lecture instead."; "Can you, my Lord of Winchester, behold My sighs and tears and will not once relent?"; "Only the valley where Sish rested when he and Time were young did Sish not provoke his hours to assail. There he restrained his old hound Time […] For the minds of the gods relent towards their earliest memories, who relent not otherwise at all."intransitive

2. (intransitive) To slacken; to abate.Examples: "We waited for the storm to relent before we ventured outside."; "He will not relent in his effort to reclaim his victory."; "WORF: When my foster brother and I were of age, we entered the Starfleet Academy. He hated it and returned to Gault. I stayed. KONMEL: You have not spent much time among your own kind. WORF: Hardly none. KORRIS: So, when the night was still and quiet, and the sound of the blood rushing through your veins filled your ears, the only way to silence it was to slip out into the night and, like the hunter that spawned you, join in the struggle of life and death. You were unable KONMEL: And those around you did not understand. You frightened them. KORRIS: They shunned you. Cursed you. Called you vile names, and you knew not why. Even now do you know why you are driven? Why you cannot relent or repent or confess or abstain? How could you know? There have been no other Klingons to lead you to that knowledge. WORF: Yes. Yes, those feelings are part of me. But I control them. They do not rule me. KORRIS: Yes. To fit in, the humans demand that you change the one thing that you cannot change. Yet, because you cannot, you do. That too is the mark of the warrior. You said that I mock you. I do not. I salute you."intransitive

3. (obsolete, transitive) To lessen, make less severe or intense.Examples: "But nothing might relent her hastie flight; / So deepe the deadly feare of that foule swaine / Was earst impressed in her gentle spright […]"obsoletetransitive

4. (dated, intransitive, of substance) To become less rigid or hard; to soften; to yield, for example by dissolving or meltingExamples: "[Salt of tartar] placed in a cellar will […] begin to relent."; "When opening buds salute the welcome day, / And earth, relenting, feels the genial ray."datedintransitive

1. (obsolete) softhearted; yieldingobsolete