relaxed

1. 1
   adjective

   Free from tension or worry; calm and taking things in an unhurried, easygoing way.

   The host's easy manner made all the guests feel relaxed.

   On vacation he was finally relaxed enough to stop thinking about deadlines.

   Similarcalm, easygoing, mellow, composed, collected

   Oppositestressed, anxious, nervous

   Note

   A sense that stretches easily from people to places. You can be a relaxed kind of guy, but a café can also have a relaxed atmosphere, and a cafeteria can offer a relaxed and informal setting. Laid-back and easygoing are the conversational near-synonyms, while unconcerned leans toward indifference. Its opposites (anxious, nervous, stressed) show that what is missing is worry, not energy.

2. 2
   adjective

   Made less strict or demanding than before; more lenient or lax.

   Under the new policy, security checks became noticeably relaxed.

   The committee adopted a relaxed approach to filing deadlines.

   Similarlenient, lax, loose, flexible

   Oppositestrict, stringent, tight

   Note

   Here the word is said of rules, standards and watchfulness rather than of people. In the American novelist Winston Churchill's The Celebrity (1897), a wife's "vigilance was seldom relaxed", a line that sits close to the verb, since something has been loosened by someone. The opposite movement is tightening: relaxed rules can be "greatly tightened" again. Said of a person instead, the word shifts to the sense of being at ease.

3. 3
   adjective

   Of a muscle, soft, loosened and not contracted.

   The therapist checked that the patient's calf muscles were fully relaxed.

   During deep sleep, most of the body's muscles stay relaxed.

   Similarloose, limp

   Oppositetense, contracted, tight

   Note

   Physiology still applies the word to muscle, but neutrally. A relaxed muscle is simply one that is not tensed, the resting counterpart of a contracted one, and nothing about it is unhealthy. That separates it sharply from the obsolete "feeble" sense, where relaxed meant a body gone slack through weakness. In clinical or training talk, "fully relaxed" is the usual phrase.

4. 4
   adjective

   Without physical tension; resting in a state of mechanical equilibrium.

   The polymer chains adopt a relaxed configuration once the load is removed.

   When the cable goes slack, it hangs in a relaxed curve.

   Similarslack, loose

   Oppositetaut, tense, strained

   Note

   Physicists use the word for a system that is no longer under strain and has settled into equilibrium. It is the state a material returns to once the load is taken off. What it describes is balance, not ease or weakness. The word typically pairs with nouns such as configuration, state or structure, so a scientist speaks of a relaxed configuration rather than calling the material itself relaxed in the everyday sense.

5. 5
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of relax.

   The rules were relaxed after months of public protest.

   He finally relaxed once the exam was over.

   Note

   The past forms are regular, and they do double duty because relax works both with and without an object. "He finally relaxed" describes something a person does; "the rules were relaxed" is a passive, with someone doing the loosening. That passive shares its spelling with the adjective. The test is whether you can add "by someone": "relaxed by the board" is the verb, but "a relaxed mood" is not.

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