slab
1 Americannoun
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slabs
plural
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a broad, flat, somewhat thick piece of stone, wood, or other solid material.
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a thick slice of anything.
a slab of bread.
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a semifinished piece of iron or steel so rolled that its breadth is at least twice its thickness.
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a rough outside piece cut from a log, as when sawing one into boards.
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Baseball Slang. rubber.
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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)
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slabs,
present (3rd person singular)
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slabbed,
past participle, past
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slabbing
present participle
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to make into a slab or slabs.
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to cover or lay with slabs.
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to cut the slabs or outside pieces from (a log).
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to put on in slabs; cover thickly.
adjective
noun
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a broad flat thick piece of wood, stone, or other material
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a thick slice of cake, etc
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any of the outside parts of a log that are sawn off while the log is being made into planks
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mountaineering a flat sheet of rock lying at an angle of between 30° and 60° from the horizontal
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a printer's ink table
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(modifier) made or constructed of coarse wooden planks
a slab hut
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informal an operating or mortuary table
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informal a package containing 24 cans of beer
verb
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to cut or make into a slab or slabs
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to cover or lay with slabs
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to saw slabs from (a log)
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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slabsimple
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slabssimple
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have slabbedperfect
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has slabbedperfect
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am slabbingprogressive
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are slabbingprogressive
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is slabbingprogressive
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have been slabbingperfect progressive
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has been slabbingperfect progressive
Past
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slabbedsimple
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had slabbedperfect
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was slabbingprogressive
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were slabbingprogressive
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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
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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
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A Single Shard
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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
That study also found evidence that the slab was shallower offshore than earlier estimates suggested.
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
Beneath the carpet is a concrete slab that rests on earth that was compacted twenty years ago by heavy machinery.
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
The selection of masonry also include stone floor slabs.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
My grandmother’s baked spaghetti came in slabs, which was part of its charm.
From Salon ● Sep. 20, 2026
Rather than forming one unbroken sheet, Arctic sea ice is divided into separate slabs known as floes.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 18, 2026
Under this law, employers are required to take steps to protect workers, such as providing protective respirators and using water to suppress dust, when employees are cutting, grinding or polishing slabs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
Limestone slabs rimmed by thick moss and grasses glare whitely in the sun.
From "Without Refuge" by Jane Mitchell
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
The soap remains in the frame from six to eight days and is then slabbed, barred and pressed by the usual method employed for soaps thus handled without milling.
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
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
Numbers 3 and 4 are for slabbing or converting round logs into square timber.
From Modern Machine-Shop Practice, Volumes I and II by Joshua Rose
These, too far off to supply wood for firing or slabbing, still stood green and timbered, and looked down upon the havoc that had been made of the fair, pastoral lands.
From Australia Felix by Henry Handel Richardson
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
Definitions 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.
