slab
/slæb/ noun, verb, adjective
Forms slabs slabbing slabbed slabber slabbest
- noun A large, flat piece of solid material; a solid object that is large and flat.
- noun A paving stone; a flagstone.
- noun (Australia) A carton containing 24 cans (chiefly of beer).
- noun An outside piece taken from a log or timber when sawing it into boards, planks, etc.
- noun (nautical) The slack part of a sail.
- noun (surfing) A very large wave.
- noun (programming) The amount by which a cache can grow or shrink, used in memory allocation.
- noun (geology) Part of a tectonic plate that is being, or has been, subducted.
- verb (transitive) To make into a slab.
- verb (transitive, informal) To destroy (a structure) so completely as to leave only the foundation slab visible. “Multiple homes were slabbed by the monster tornado.”
- noun (archaic) Mud, sludge, or other viscous matter.
- adjective (archaic) Thick; viscous.
- noun (Southern US, slang) A car that has been modified with equipment such as loudspeakers, lights, special paint, hydraulics, and other accessories.
- noun (British dialect, obsolete) A bird, the wryneck.
- noun (computing) A sequence of 12 adjacent bits, serving as a byte in some computers.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English sclabbe, slabbe, of uncertain origin; possibly from *slap, related to dialectal slappel (“portion, piece”), along with slape (“slippery”), sleip (“smooth piece of timber”), borrowed through Old Norse sleipr from Proto-Germanic *slaipaz, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)leyb-. See also Norwegian sleip (“slippery”) and Icelandic sleipur.
Compare Scottish Gaelic slàib (“mud”) and Irish slaba (“muddy flat”), and English slop (“puddle”).
Acronym of Slow, Loud And Bangin'. This term been popularized through the southern rap genre of hip-hop, most notably by rappers such as Paul Wall, Chamillionaire, Lil' Keke, and others.
From syllable.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A thin piece of anything, especially of marble or other stone, having plane surfaces. Gwilt.
- noun An outside piece taken from a log or timber in sawing it into boards, planks, etc.
- adjective Thick; viscous. [Obs.]
- noun That which is slimy or viscous; moist earth; mud; also, a puddle. [Obs.] Evelyn.
Etymology [OE. slabbe, of uncertain origin; perhaps originally meaning, a smooth piece, and akin to slape, Icel. sleipr slippery, and E. slip, v. i.]
Etymology [Cf. Gael. & Ir. slaib mud, mire left on a river strand, and E. slop puddle.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “slab”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details