slab
1 Americannoun
-
slabs
plural
-
a broad, flat, somewhat thick piece of stone, wood, or other solid material.
-
a thick slice of anything.
a slab of bread.
-
a semifinished piece of iron or steel so rolled that its breadth is at least twice its thickness.
-
a rough outside piece cut from a log, as when sawing one into boards.
-
Baseball Slang. rubber.
-
Building Trades. a section of concrete pavement or a concrete floor placed directly on the ground or on a base of gravel.
verb (used with object)
-
slabs,
present (3rd person singular)
-
slabbed,
past participle, past
-
slabbing
present participle
-
to make into a slab or slabs.
-
to cover or lay with slabs.
-
to cut the slabs or outside pieces from (a log).
-
to put on in slabs; cover thickly.
adjective
noun
-
a broad flat thick piece of wood, stone, or other material
-
a thick slice of cake, etc
-
any of the outside parts of a log that are sawn off while the log is being made into planks
-
mountaineering a flat sheet of rock lying at an angle of between 30° and 60° from the horizontal
-
a printer's ink table
-
(modifier) made or constructed of coarse wooden planks
a slab hut
-
informal an operating or mortuary table
-
informal a package containing 24 cans of beer
verb
-
to cut or make into a slab or slabs
-
to cover or lay with slabs
-
to saw slabs from (a log)
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
slabsimple
-
slabssimple
-
have slabbedperfect
-
has slabbedperfect
-
am slabbingprogressive
-
are slabbingprogressive
-
is slabbingprogressive
-
have been slabbingperfect progressive
-
has been slabbingperfect progressive
Past
-
slabbedsimple
-
had slabbedperfect
-
was slabbingprogressive
-
were slabbingprogressive
-
had been slabbingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of slab1
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English noun slab(be), sclabbe; further origin unknown
Origin of slab2
First recorded in 1595–1605; apparently from Scandinavian; compare Swedish, Norwegian slabb “mire,” Danish slab “mud,” Icelandic slabba “to wade in mud”
Explanation
A slab is a great big thick piece of something. Your backyard patio, for example, might be made of a huge slab of concrete. A sidewalk is often composed of one cement slab after another — these are sometimes called paving slabs. You could refer to large pieces of stone or wood as slabs too. Even your lunch might be a slab, if it's a thick hunk of cheesy pizza or a huge slab of bread slathered with peanut butter. The origins of the word slab are unknown, though we do know it's been around since the thirteenth century.
Vocabulary lists containing slab
Words to Know Before You Defrost the Bird
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
A Single Shard
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The statue, dedicated in 2008, stood on a concrete slab between lanes of traffic outside the Sacramento Youth Center in the 1900 block of Del Paso Boulevard.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026
Northern Oregon experiences relatively little seismic activity compared with western Washington and northern California, leaving researchers with fewer earthquakes to use when studying the buried slab and the way seismic waves move through the region.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026
The golden slab loses a few crumbs over the tablecloth when cut and grabbed.
From Salon ● Aug. 11, 2026
It looked to me like a slab of meat in a butcher’s case.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
With a wave Heqet made off toward the goldhouse, and Ranofer started at a run back to his red granite slab.
From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Saeed said the entire structure, which had "substandard" roof slabs, was "overloaded" and beyond the limit of how much weight it could bear.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
Rather than forming one unbroken sheet, Arctic sea ice is divided into separate slabs known as floes.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 18, 2026
We ate thick slices with cold salted butter — not so much smeared across the crumb as laid on in pale slabs, because patience has never been a prerequisite for breakfast.
From Salon ● Aug. 31, 2026
Buzzing slabs of distorted guitar collide with piano, accordion and harmonica, filling all available sonic space.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
She asked the children to sit on the wood slabs.
From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Father Ariel’s jaunty voice echoed from where he was standing at the slabbed marble pulpit, as he smiled out at the congregation.
From Salon ● Mar. 31, 2024
For one thing Murray was rake-thin and slouchy, a gangly kid next to the slabbed and ripped power-players of the modern men’s game.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 11, 2019
Great sheets of it are slabbed up in front of government buildings and on the "peace line" that separates the Catholic Falls Road from the Protestant Shankill.
From Time Magazine Archive
At times, you become almost certain that you slabbed this hillside three days ago, crossed this stream yesterday, clambered over this fallen tree at least twice today already.
From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
When the soap has cooled, the frame is stripped and the soap slabbed as usual.
From Soap-Making Manual A Practical Handbook on the Raw Materials, Their Manipulation, Analysis and Control in the Modern Soap Plant. by E. G. Thomssen
The work of it was treated as a burden: the parting, the slabbing sulfur-scented grease to scalp for detangling, the heat pressing into a more manageable texture.
From Salon ● Jan. 31, 2021
Martha's cooking and the heavy work were slabbing muscle onto Waziri's lean, brown frame.
From Blind Man's Lantern by George Luther Schelling
After the filling material has been thoroughly crutched through the soap it is framed, and, after being several days in the frame to solidify and cool the soap is ready for slabbing, pressing and wrapping.
From Soap-Making Manual A Practical Handbook on the Raw Materials, Their Manipulation, Analysis and Control in the Modern Soap Plant. by E. G. Thomssen
But I'd advise you to go to the sawmill for your planks, though I do understand the theory of slabbing.'
From Cedar Creek From the Shanty to the Settlement by Elizabeth Hely Walshe
Such a road can be very easily and cheaply built by bringing in a portable sawmill and slabbing the material on two sides to the desired face.
From Motor Truck Logging Methods Engineering Experiment Station Series, Bulletin No. 12 by Frederick Malcolm Knapp
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
