relaxation

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The act of relaxing or the state of being relaxed.
• noun Refreshment of body or mind; recreation.
• noun A loosening or slackening.
• noun A reduction in strictness or severity.
• noun Physiology The lengthening of inactive muscle or muscle fibers.
• noun Physics The return or adjustment of a system to equilibrium following displacement or abrupt change.
• noun Mathematics A method of solving equations in which the errors resulting from an initial approximation are reduced by succeeding approximations until all errors are within specified limits.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The act of relaxing, or the state of being relaxed.
• noun Remission or abatement of rigor.
• noun Remission of attention or application: as, relaxation of efforts.
• noun Unbending; recreation; a state or occupation intended to give mental or bodily relief after effort.
• noun Same as redislocation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act or process of relaxing, or the state of being relaxed
• noun Remission from attention and effort; indulgence in recreation, diversion, or amusement.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The act of relaxing or the state of being relaxed; the opposite of stress or tension; the aim of recreation and leisure activities.
• noun A diminution of tone, tension, or firmness; specifically in pathology: a looseness; a diminution of the natural and healthy tone of parts.
• noun Remission or abatement of rigor.
• noun Remission of attention or application.
• noun Unbending; recreation; a state or occupation intended to give mental or bodily relief after effort.
• noun physics The transition of an atom or molecule from a higher energy level to a lower one.
• noun music The release following musical tension.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a feeling of refreshing tranquility and an absence of tension or worry
• noun the act of making less strict
• noun (physics) the exponential return of a system to equilibrium after a disturbance
• noun an occurrence of control or strength weakening
• noun a method of solving simultaneous equations by guessing a solution and then reducing the errors that result by successive approximations until all the errors are less than some specified amount
• noun (physiology) the gradual lengthening of inactive muscle or muscle fibers
• noun freedom from activity (work or strain or responsibility)