slide
/ˈslaɪ̯d/ verb, noun
Forms slides sliding slid slidden
- verb (ergative) To (cause to) move in continuous contact with a surface. “He slid the boat across the grass.”
- verb (intransitive) To move on a low-friction surface. “The car slid on the ice.”
- verb (intransitive, baseball) To drop down and skid into a base. “Jones slid into second.”
- verb (intransitive) To lose one’s balance on a slippery surface. “He slid while going around the corner.”
- verb (transitive) To pass or put imperceptibly; to slip. “to alter the meaning of a question by sliding in a word”
- verb (transitive) To subtly direct a facial expression at (someone). “He slid me a dirty look.”
- verb (intransitive, obsolete) To pass inadvertently.
- verb (intransitive) To pass along smoothly or unobservedly; to move gently onward without friction or hindrance. “A ship or boat slides through the water.”
- noun An item of play equipment that children can climb up and then slide down again. “The long, red slide was great fun for the kids.”
- noun A surface of ice, snow, butter, etc. on which someone can slide for amusement or as a practical joke.
- noun The falling of large amounts of rubble, earth and stones down the slope of a hill or mountain; avalanche. “The slide closed the highway.”
- noun An inclined plane on which heavy bodies slide by the force of gravity, especially one constructed on a mountainside for conveying logs by sliding them down.
- noun A mechanism, or portion of one, consisting of a part which slides on or against a guide. “On many semiautomatic pistols, the barrel is beneath the slide.”
- noun The act of sliding; smooth, even passage or progress. “a slide on the ice”
- noun A lever that can be moved in two directions.
- noun Synonym of slider (“movable part of a zip fastener that opens or closes the row of teeth”).
Synonyms
slip toboggan sled slippery dip slippery slide chute runner slider microscope slide swoop playground slide sliding board glide coast lantern slide slideway sloping trough skid slue slew slither
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English sliden, from Old English slīdan, from Proto-West Germanic *slīdan, from Proto-Germanic *slīdaną, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃sléydʰeti, from *h₃sleydʰ- (“slippery”) + *-eti. Cognate with Old High German slītan (“to slide”) (whence German schlittern), Middle Low German slīden (“to slide”), Middle Dutch slīden (“to slide”) (whence Dutch slijderen, frequentative of now obsolete slijden), Vedic Sanskrit स्रेधति (srédhati, “to err, blunder”).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To move along the surface of any body by slipping, or without walking or rolling; to slip; to glide; as, snow slides down the mountain's side.
- verb Especially, to move over snow or ice with a smooth, uninterrupted motion, as on a sled moving by the force of gravity, or on the feet.
- verb To cause to slide; to thrust along; as, to slide one piece of timber along another.
- verb To pass or put imperceptibly; to slip; as, to slide in a word to vary the sense of a question.
Etymology [OE. sliden, AS. slidan; akin to MHG. sliten, also to AS. slidor slippery, E. sled, Lith. slidus slippery. Cf. Sled.]
Etymology [AS. slide.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “slide”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details