slashing
[slash-ing]
- a slash.
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- sweeping; cutting.
- violent; severe: a slashing wind.
- dashing; impetuous.
- vivid; flashing; brilliant.
- Informal. very large or fine; splendid: a slashing fortune.
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Origin of slashing
slash1
[slash]
- 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.
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- to lay about one with sharp, sweeping strokes; make one's way by cutting.
- to make a sweeping, cutting stroke.
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- 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)
- (in forest land)
- an open area strewn with debris of trees from felling or from wind or fire.
- the debris itself.
- Slang. slash fiction.
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Origin of slash1
1350–1400; Middle English slaschen < ?
Synonyms
See more synonyms for slash on Thesaurus.com3. abridge, abbreviate.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for slashing
Contemporary Examples
When she held onto her post, Perry followed through, slashing $7.5 million of funding over two years.
And then makes a slashing gesture across his throat and laughs.
Forty-nine-year-old Elena brings a trembling hand to the bridge of her nose and makes a slashing movement across it.
Erik Prince is not the kind of man one expects to make the case for slashing U.S. intelligence and military budgets.
In the acknowledgments, Zaicklas confesses a tendency to plant too many clues, and she thanks her editor for slashing them.
Historical Examples
In the forests the loggers were tearing and slashing into all but the remnant of the 96 timber.
Louisiana LouWilliam West Winter
Sail had been lowered by slashing away the ropes that held the yards.
Captain BloodRafael Sabatini
“You and Mattawa are about through with that slashing contract,” he said.
The Greater PowerHarold Bindloss
A thrust, a slashing blow, and the Drilgo was weltering in his life-blood.
An instant later he was locked in the clutch of the yelling, slashing Apache.
Bloom of CactusRobert Ames Bennet
slashing
- aggressively or harshly critical (esp in the phrase slashing attack)
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slash
- 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
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- 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
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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 slashing
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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slash
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