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slash1

[slash]
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verb (used with object)
  1. to cut with a violent sweeping stroke or by striking violently and at random, as with a knife or sword.
  2. to lash; whip.
  3. to cut, reduce, or alter: The editors slashed the story to half its length.
  4. to make slits in (a garment) to show an underlying fabric.
  5. to criticize, censure, or attack in a savage or cutting manner.
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verb (used without object)
  1. to lay about one with sharp, sweeping strokes; make one's way by cutting.
  2. to make a sweeping, cutting stroke.
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noun
  1. a sweeping stroke, as with a knife, sword, or pen.
  2. a cut, wound, or mark made with such a stroke.
  3. a curtailment, reduction, or alteration: a drastic slash of prices.
  4. a decorative slit in a garment showing an underlying fabric.
    1. a short oblique stroke (/) between two words indicating that whichever is appropriate may be chosen to complete the sense of the text in which they occur; a virgule: you and/or your dependents.
    2. a dividing line, as in dates, fractions, a run-in passage of poetry to show verse division, etc.; a virgule: She got 3/4 of the answers correct. “Sweetest love, I do not go/For weariness of thee.” (John Donne)
    Compare forward slash, backslash.
  6. (in forest land)
    1. an open area strewn with debris of trees from felling or from wind or fire.
    2. the debris itself.
  7. Slang. slash fiction.
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Origin of slash1

1350–1400; Middle English slaschen < ?
Related formsun·slashed, adjective

Synonyms

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3. abridge, abbreviate.

slash2

[slash]
noun
  1. Often slashes. a tract of wet or swampy ground overgrown with bushes or trees.
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Origin of slash2

An Americanism dating back to 1645–55; origin uncertain
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for slash

Contemporary Examples

Historical Examples

  • Should they break through our barricades, slash at the horses with your scythes.

    Micah Clarke

    Arthur Conan Doyle

  • With them it was snap and slash and get away, snap and slash and get away.

    White Fang

    Jack London

  • Weedon Scott had believed that he was quick enough to avoid any snap or slash.

    White Fang

    Jack London

  • His sword was broken by a slash from a brown bill, and he was borne to the ground.

  • All one has to do is to stop thinking and sag, or stop thinking and slash.

British Dictionary definitions for slash

slash

verb (tr)
  1. to cut or lay about (a person or thing) with sharp sweeping strokes, as with a sword, knife, etc
  2. to lash with a whip
  3. to make large gashes into slash tyres
  4. to reduce (prices, etc) drastically
  5. mainly US to criticize harshly
  6. to slit (the outer fabric of a garment) so that the lining material is revealed
  7. to clear (scrub or undergrowth) by cutting
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noun
  1. a sharp, sweeping stroke, as with a sword or whip
  2. a cut or rent made by such a stroke
  3. a decorative slit in a garment revealing the lining material
  4. US and Canadian
    1. littered wood chips and broken branches that remain after trees have been cut down
    2. an area so littered
  5. Also called: diagonal, forward slash, separatrix, shilling mark, solidus, stroke, virgule a short oblique stroke used in text to separate items of information, such as days, months, and years in dates (18/7/80), alternative words (and/or), numerator from denominator in fractions (55/103), etc
  6. British slang the act of urinating (esp in the phrase have a slash)
  7. a genre of erotic fiction written by women, to appeal to women
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Word Origin

C14 slaschen, perhaps from Old French esclachier to break
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for slash

v.

1540s, "to cut with a stroke of a blade or whip;" 1650s, "to strike violently," perhaps from Middle French esclachier "to break," variant of esclater "to break, splinter" (see slat). Meaning "to clear land" (of trees) is from 1821, American English. In reference to prices, it is attested from 1906. Related: Slashed; slashing. Slash-and-burn for a method of clearing forest for cultivation is from 1919.

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n.

"a cutting stroke with a weapon," 1570s, from slash (v.); sense of "slit in a garment" is from 1610s; that of "open tract in a forest" is first attested 1825, American English. As a punctuation mark in writing or printing, it is recorded from 1961.

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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper