slab

See also: sláb

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /slæb/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æb

Etymology 1

From Middle English sclabbe, slabbe, of uncertain origin; possibly from *slap, related to dialectal slappel (“portion, piece”), along with slape (“slippery”), sleip (“smooth piece of timber”), borrowed through Old Norse sleipr from Proto-Germanic *slaipaz, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)leyb-. See also Norwegian sleip (“slippery”) and Icelandic sleipur.

Noun

slab (plural slabs)

1. A large, flat piece of solid material; a solid object that is large and flat.
   • 1859, John Lang, Botany Bay, or, True Tales of Early Australia, page 155:

     There were no windows in the inn. They were not required, since the interstices between the slabs suffered the wind, the rain, and the light of day to penetrate simultaneously.

   • 1913 August, Jack London, chapter V, in John Barleycorn, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 45:

     Then there was the Mexican who sold big slabs of chewing taffy for five cents each. […] And many a day I made my entire lunch off of one of those slabs.

   • 1962, “Monster Mash”, Bobby "Boris" Pickett and Lenny Capizzi (lyrics), performed by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers:

     I was working in the lab late one night
     When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
     For my monster, from his slab, began to rise
     And suddenly, to my surprise
     He did the Mash
     He did the Monster Mash.

   • 2010, Ryan Humphreys, The Flirtations of Dan Harris, page 73:

     “The pier? You mean those few sodden logs tied together and that dingy slab of rough concrete.”

2. A paving stone; a flagstone.
3. (Australia) A carton containing 24 cans (chiefly of beer). [from 20th c.]
   • 2001, Les Carlyon, Gallipoli, page 8:

     The Australians murder a few slabs of beer and the New Zealanders murder a few vowels.

   • 2002, Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country, Allen & Unwin, published 2003, page 88:

     The older man bought a slab of Coca-Cola at the counter and carried it out ahead of the younger man.

   • 2008, Diem Vo, Family Life, Alice Pung (editor), page 156,

     However, unlike in Ramsay Street, there were never any cups of tea or bickies served. Instead, each family unit came armed with a slab of beer.

   • 2010, Holly Smith, Perth, Western Australia & the Outback, Hunter Publishing, unnumbered page:

     Common 375-ml cans are called tinnies, and can be bought in 24-can slabs for discounted prices.

   • 2009, Ross Fitzgerald, Trevor Jordan, Under the Influence: A History of Alcohol in Australia, published 2011, unnumbered page:

     One essential part of the strategy for selling regionally identified beers beyond their borders was the selling of slabs — a package of four six-packs of stubbies or cans — for discounted prices interstate.

4. An outside piece taken from a log or timber when sawing it into boards, planks, etc.
5. (nautical) The slack part of a sail.
6. (US, slang) A large, luxury pre-1980 General Motors vehicle, particularly a Buick, Oldsmobile, or Cadillac.
   • 2021 March 23, Peter Holley, “They Just Moved Into an Austin Neighborhood. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions.”, in Texas Monthly‎^[1]:

     After a few loops around the park, some drivers—most of them Black and Latino men in their twenties and thirties driving customized lowriders, bright, candy-colored slabs, and jacked-up trucks with flashy chrome rims—packed into a nearby middle school parking lot.

7. (surfing) A very large wave.
   • 2009, Bruce Boal, The Surfing Yearbook, SurfersVillage, page 31:

     After being towed into a massive slab, Dorian dropped down the face and caught a rail, putting him in a near-impossible situation.

   • 2011, Douglas Booth, Surfing: The Ultimate Guide, page 95:

     In August 2000 he successfully rode a slab of unfathomable power at Teahupo′o.

8. (programming) The amount by which a cache can grow or shrink, used in memory allocation.
9. (geology) Part of a tectonic plate that is being, or has been, subducted.
   • 2015, Dapeng Zhao, Multiscale Seismic Tomography, Springer, page 72:

     Being driven by the gravitational force, the subducting Pacific slab continues to sink down to the boundary between the upper and lower mantle […]

10. (construction) A poured-concrete foundation for a building.
11. (geometry) A region between two parallel lines in the Euclidean plane, or between two parallel planes in three-dimensional Euclidean space, or between two hyperplanes in higher dimensions.
12. A flat, sealed plastic case that encloses a flat collector's item, such as a coin or a trading card.

Derived terms

• mat slab
• mud slab
• paving slab
• slabby
• slab cake
• slab hut
• slab line
• slab on grade
• slab pull
• slab serif
• slab-serif
• slab-sided
• slab track, slab-track (verb)
• split slab

 

Translations

flat piece of material

• Armenian: սալ (hy) (sal)
• Bulgarian: плоча (bg) (ploča)
• Catalan: placa (ca) f, tauló (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 鋼板／钢板 (zh) (gāngbǎn) (steel), 石板 (zh) (shíbǎn) (stone, marble), 水泥板 (shuǐníbǎn) (concrete), 厚板 (zh) (hòubǎn), 平板 (zh) (píngbǎn)

• Esperanto: ^{(please verify)} plato
• Finnish: laatta (fi), levy (fi), kimpale (fi)
• French: chape (fr) f
• Galician: laxe (gl) f, placa (gl) f, lastra f, lamela (gl) f, lamia (gl) f, launa f
• German: Scheibe (de) f, Platte (de) f, Tafel (de) f, Bodenelement n, Wandelement n, Deckenplatte f
• Greek: πλάκα (el) f (pláka)

  Ancient: ἄβαξ m (ábax)

• Irish: leac f
• Italian: piastra (it) f, lastra (it) f, fetta (it) f, soletta f
• Japanese: 平板 (ja) (へいばん, heiban), スラブ (surabu)
• Portuguese: laje (pt) f
• Romanian: placă (ro)
• Russian: плита́ (ru) f (plitá), слэ́б (ru) m (slɛ́b)
• Slovene: tablica f, plošča (sl) f
• Spanish: plancha (es) f, tabla (es) f, lámina (es) f
• Swedish: skiva (sv), platta (sv) c

paving stone

• Arabic: بَلَاط m (balāṭ)
• Armenian: սալաքար (hy) (salakʻar), սալ (hy) (sal)
• Basque: harlauza
• Bulgarian: плочка (bg) f (pločka)
• Catalan: llosa f
• Finnish: laatta (fi)
• French: dalle (fr) f
• Galician: lousa (gl) f, lastra f
• German: Fliese (de) f, Platte (de) f, Steinplatte (de) f, Fliesenplatte f, Gehwegplatte f, Steinfliese (de) f, Bodenplatte (de) f, Bodenfliese f, Pflasterstein (de) m, Pflasterplatte f
• Greek: πλάκα (el) f (pláka)
• Irish: leac f
• Italian: piastrella (it) f, mattonella (it) f, lastra (it) f
• Norwegian: steinhelle f
• Polish: płyta (pl) f
• Portuguese: laje (pt) f, placa (pt) f
• Romanian: dală (ro), lespede (ro)
• Russian: плита́ (ru) f (plitá)
• Slovene: tlakovec m
• Spanish: baldosa (es) f, adoquín (es) m, losa (es) f, laja (es) f

Verb

slab (third-person singular simple present slabs, present participle slabbing, simple past and past participle slabbed)

1. (transitive) To make into a slab.
2. (transitive, informal) To destroy (a structure) so completely as to leave only the foundation slab visible.

   Multiple homes were slabbed by the monster tornado.

   Synonym: raze

Etymology 2

Compare Goidelic and Irish slaib (“mud, mire left on a river strand”), and English slop (“puddle”).

Noun

slab (uncountable)

1. (archaic) Mud, sludge.
   • 1664, J[ohn] E[velyn], Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions. […], London: […] Jo[hn] Martyn, and Ja[mes] Allestry, printers to the Royal Society, […], →OCLC:

     Some do also plant oziers in their eights, like quick-sets, thick, and (near the water) keep them not more than half a foot above ground; but then they must be diligently cleansed from moss, slab, and ouze, and frequently prun'd (especially the smaller spires) to form single shoots; […] .

Derived terms

• slabby

Adjective

slab (comparative more slab, superlative most slab)

1. (archaic) Thick; viscous.
   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     Make the gruel thick and slab:

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “slab”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Etymology 3

Acronym of Slow, Loud And Bangin'. This term been popularized through the southern rap genre of hip-hop, most notably by rappers such as Paul Wall, Chamillionaire, Lil' Keke, and others.

Noun

slab (plural slabs)

1. (Southern US, slang) A car that has been modified with equipment such as loudspeakers, lights, special paint, hydraulics, and other accessories.
   • 2005, Chamillionaire (featuring Krayzie Bone), "Ridin'", The Sound of Revenge:

     Pull me over, try to check my slab

   • 2006, Trae (featuring Pimp C and Big Hawk), "Swang", Restless:

     I'mma swang, I'mma swing my slab lean to the left

   • 2012, Bobby Austin, By All Mean$, AuthorHouse, published 2012, →ISBN, page 56:

     All three of them recognized who the Lexus'^[sic] belonged to so he parked his slab and they cocked their guns.

Etymology 4

Noun

slab (plural slabs)

1. (British dialect, obsolete) A bird, the wryneck.

Etymology 5

From syllable.

Noun

slab (plural slabs)

1. (computing) A sequence of 12 adjacent bits, serving as a byte in some computers.

References

• “slab”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• labs, BLAS, BASL, albs, BLAs, BALs, Labs, LABs, B.L.A.S.

Aromanian

Alternative forms

• slabu

Etymology

From a Slavic language, ultimately from Proto-Slavic *slàbъ. Compare Romanian slab, Bulgarian and Macedonian слаб (slab), Serbo-Croatian slȁb.

Adjective

slab m (feminine slabã, masculine plural slaghi, feminine plural slabi or slabe)

1. weak
2. lean, thin, skinny
3. bad, wicked, evil

Synonyms

• (bad): arãu

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of “weak”): vãrtos, cadãr, putut, ndrumin, silnãos
• (antonym(s) of “thin, lean”): gras
• (antonym(s) of “bad”): bun

Derived terms

• slãbintsã
• slãbushcu

Related terms

• slãghescu

Noun

slab m

1. evil

Synonyms

• arãu, rãu

Derived terms

• slabã

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

slab f (plural slabben, diminutive slabbetje n)

1. (also very common in the diminutive) bib

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English slab.

Noun

slab m (invariable)

1. slab (of metal to be worked)

   Synonym: bramma

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from Old Church Slavonic слабъ (slabŭ), from Proto-Slavic *slàbъ. Compare Aromanian slab, Bulgarian and Macedonian слаб (slab), Serbo-Croatian slȁb.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [slab]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio:

  (file)

Adjective

slab m or n (feminine singular slabă, masculine plural slabi, feminine and neuter plural slabe)

1. weak

   Antonym: puternic

2. thin, skinny

   Antonym: gras

Declension

		singular				plural
		masculine	neuter	feminine		masculine	neuter	feminine
nominative/ accusative	indefinite	slab		slabă		slabi	slabe
	definite	slabul		slaba		slabii	slabele
genitive/ dative	indefinite	slab		slabe		slabi	slabe
	definite	slabului		slabei		slabilor	slabelor

Related terms

• slăbănog
• slăbătură
• slăbi
• slăbiciune
• slăbire
• slăbit
• slăbuț

 

See also

• subțire

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *slàbъ, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)leh₂b- (“to be weak, limp, languid”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /slâb/

Adjective

slȁb (Cyrillic spelling сла̏б, definite slȁbī, comparative slabiji)

1. weak

Declension

positive indefinite forms

singular		masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative		slab	slaba	slabo
genitive		slaba	slabe	slaba
dative		slabu	slaboj	slabu
accusative	inanimate animate	slab slaba	slabu	slabo
vocative		slab	slaba	slabo
locative		slabu	slaboj	slabu
instrumental		slabim	slabom	slabim
plural		masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative		slabi	slabe	slaba
genitive		slabih	slabih	slabih
dative		slabim(a)	slabim(a)	slabim(a)
accusative		slabe	slabe	slaba
vocative		slabi	slabe	slaba
locative		slabim(a)	slabim(a)	slabim(a)
instrumental		slabim(a)	slabim(a)	slabim(a)

positive definite forms

singular		masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative		slabi	slaba	slabo
genitive		slabog(a)	slabe	slabog(a)
dative		slabom(u/e)	slaboj	slabom(u/e)
accusative	inanimate animate	slabi slabog(a)	slabu	slabo
vocative		slabi	slaba	slabo
locative		slabom(e/u)	slaboj	slabom(e/u)
instrumental		slabim	slabom	slabim
plural		masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative		slabi	slabe	slaba
genitive		slabih	slabih	slabih
dative		slabim(a)	slabim(a)	slabim(a)
accusative		slabe	slabe	slaba
vocative		slabi	slabe	slaba
locative		slabim(a)	slabim(a)	slabim(a)
instrumental		slabim(a)	slabim(a)	slabim(a)

comparative forms

singular		masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative		slabiji	slabija	slabije
genitive		slabijeg(a)	slabije	slabijeg(a)
dative		slabijem(u)	slabijoj	slabijem(u)
accusative	inanimate animate	slabiji slabijeg(a)	slabiju	slabije
vocative		slabiji	slabija	slabije
locative		slabijem(u)	slabijoj	slabijem(u)
instrumental		slabijim	slabijom	slabijim
plural		masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative		slabiji	slabije	slabija
genitive		slabijih	slabijih	slabijih
dative		slabijim(a)	slabijim(a)	slabijim(a)
accusative		slabije	slabije	slabija
vocative		slabiji	slabije	slabija
locative		slabijim(a)	slabijim(a)	slabijim(a)
instrumental		slabijim(a)	slabijim(a)	slabijim(a)

superlative forms

singular		masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative		najslabiji	najslabija	najslabije
genitive		najslabijeg(a)	najslabije	najslabijeg(a)
dative		najslabijem(u)	najslabijoj	najslabijem(u)
accusative	inanimate animate	najslabiji najslabijeg(a)	najslabiju	najslabije
vocative		najslabiji	najslabija	najslabije
locative		najslabijem(u)	najslabijoj	najslabijem(u)
instrumental		najslabijim	najslabijom	najslabijim
plural		masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative		najslabiji	najslabije	najslabija
genitive		najslabijih	najslabijih	najslabijih
dative		najslabijim(a)	najslabijim(a)	najslabijim(a)
accusative		najslabije	najslabije	najslabija
vocative		najslabiji	najslabije	najslabija
locative		najslabijim(a)	najslabijim(a)	najslabijim(a)
instrumental		najslabijim(a)	najslabijim(a)	najslabijim(a)

Slovene

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *slàbъ.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sláp/

Adjective

slȁb (comparative slȃbši, superlative nȁjslȃbši)

1. bad (not good)
2. weak

Inflection

The diacritics used in this section of the entry are non-tonal. If you are a native tonal speaker, please help by adding the tonal marks.

Hard
	masculine	feminine	neuter
nom. sing.	slàb	slába	slábo
singular
	masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative	slàb ind slábi def	slába	slábo
genitive	slábega	slábe	slábega
dative	slábemu	slábi	slábemu
accusative	nominativeinan or genitiveanim	slábo	slábo
locative	slábem	slábi	slábem
instrumental	slábim	slábo	slábim
dual
	masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative	slába	slábi	slábi
genitive	slábih	slábih	slábih
dative	slábima	slábima	slábima
accusative	slába	slábi	slábi
locative	slábih	slábih	slábih
instrumental	slábima	slábima	slábima
plural
	masculine	feminine	neuter
nominative	slábi	slábe	slába
genitive	slábih	slábih	slábih
dative	slábim	slábim	slábim
accusative	slábe	slábe	slába
locative	slábih	slábih	slábih
instrumental	slábimi	slábimi	slábimi

This adjective needs an inflection-table template.

Derived terms

• preslȁb

Further reading

• “slab”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU, portal Fran
• “slab”, in Termania, Amebis
• See also the general references