slash

[slash]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR slash ON THESAURUS.COM

verb (used with object)

to cut with a violent sweeping stroke or by striking violently and at random, as with a knife or sword.

to lash; whip.

to cut, reduce, or alter: The editors slashed the story to half its length.

to make slits in (a garment) to show an underlying fabric.

to criticize, censure, or attack in a savage or cutting manner.

verb (used without object)

to lay about one with sharp, sweeping strokes; make one's way by cutting.

to make a sweeping, cutting stroke.

noun

a sweeping stroke, as with a knife, sword, or pen.

a cut, wound, or mark made with such a stroke.

a curtailment, reduction, or alteration: a drastic slash of prices.

a decorative slit in a garment showing an underlying fabric.

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.
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.

(in forest land)

an open area strewn with debris of trees from felling or from wind or fire.
the debris itself.

Slang. slash fiction.

Origin of slash

1350–1400; Middle English slaschen < ?

Related formsun·slashed, adjective

Synonyms for slash

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR slash ON THESAURUS.COM

3. abridge, abbreviate.

slash

[slash]

noun

Often slashes. a tract of wet or swampy ground overgrown with bushes or trees.

Origin of slash

An Americanism dating back to 1645–55; origin uncertain

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for slash

slit, slice, sever, hack, shave, lower, cut, drop, shorten, pare, curtail, gash, pierce, rend, injure, lacerate, wound, rip, incise, chop

Examples from the Web for slash

Contemporary Examples of slash

For example, they slash the faces of female bar owners who refuse to pay protection money.
The Case of the Yakking Yakuza
Jake Adelstein
September 16, 2014
“House Republicans slash funding that would help fight Ebola,” thundered Salon.
Progressive Bloggers Spread False Ebola Story
Tim Mak
September 11, 2014
Another thing about planet tea party: Its occupants still want to slash government spending by massive amounts.
On Border, a Huge Win for the Hard Right
Michael Tomasky
August 4, 2014
I would have added “no photographs of meditative politicians walking on the shore” with a slash though a silhouette of JFK.
Why I Hate The Beach
P. J. O’Rourke
July 27, 2014
Police say he continued to stab and slash as he returned to the hallway, causing other students to stampede away from him.
Thank God the Murrysville School Attack Wasn’t Guns
Michael Daly
April 9, 2014

Historical Examples of slash

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.
The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales
Arthur Conan Doyle
All one has to do is to stop thinking and sag, or stop thinking and slash.
The Ghost in the White House
Gerald Stanley Lee

British Dictionary definitions for slash

slash

verb (tr)

to cut or lay about (a person or thing) with sharp sweeping strokes, as with a sword, knife, etc

to lash with a whip

to make large gashes into slash tyres

to reduce (prices, etc) drastically

mainly US to criticize harshly

to slit (the outer fabric of a garment) so that the lining material is revealed

to clear (scrub or undergrowth) by cutting

noun

a sharp, sweeping stroke, as with a sword or whip

a cut or rent made by such a stroke

a decorative slit in a garment revealing the lining material

US and Canadian

littered wood chips and broken branches that remain after trees have been cut down
an area so littered

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

British slang the act of urinating (esp in the phrase have a slash)

a genre of erotic fiction written by women, to appeal to women

Word Origin for slash

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

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.

"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.