slab
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /slæb/
rhymes: -æb
Forms: form: slabs
Etymology: 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.
Senses: examples: text: 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.
ref: 1859, John Lang, Botany Bay, or, True Tales of Early Australia, page 155:
text: 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.
ref: 1913 August, Jack London, chapter V, in John Barleycorn, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 45:
text: 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.
ref: 1962, “Monster Mash”, Bobby "Boris" Pickett and Lenny Capizzi (lyrics), performed by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers:
text: “The pier? You mean those few sodden logs tied together and that dingy slab of rough concrete.”
ref: 2010, Ryan Humphreys, The Flirtations of Dan Harris, page 73:
glosses: A large, flat piece of solid material; a solid object that is large and flat.
glosses: A paving stone; a flagstone.
examples: text: The Australians murder a few slabs of beer and the New Zealanders murder a few vowels.
ref: 2001, Les Carlyon, Gallipoli, page 8:
text: The older man bought a slab of Coca-Cola at the counter and carried it out ahead of the younger man.
ref: 2002, Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country, Allen & Unwin, published 2003, page 88:
text: 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.
text: Common 375-ml cans are called tinnies, and can be bought in 24-can slabs for discounted prices.
ref: 2010, Holly Smith, Perth, Western Australia & the Outback, Hunter Publishing, unnumbered page:
text: 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.
ref: 2009, Ross Fitzgerald, Trevor Jordan, Under the Influence: A History of Alcohol in Australia, published 2011, unnumbered page:
glosses: A carton containing 24 cans (chiefly of beer).
glosses: An outside piece taken from a log or timber when sawing it into boards, planks, etc.
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: The slack part of a sail.
examples: text: After being towed into a massive slab, Dorian dropped down the face and caught a rail, putting him in a near-impossible situation.
ref: 2009, Bruce Boal, The Surfing Yearbook, SurfersVillage, page 31:
text: In August 2000 he successfully rode a slab of unfathomable power at Teahupo′o.
ref: 2011, Douglas Booth, Surfing: The Ultimate Guide, page 95:
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
sports
surfing
glosses: A very large wave.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
programming
sciences
glosses: The amount by which a cache can grow or shrink, used in memory allocation.
examples: text: Being driven by the gravitational force, the subducting Pacific slab continues to sink down to the boundary between the upper and lower mantle […]
ref: 2015, Dapeng Zhao, Multiscale Seismic Tomography, Springer, page 72:
topics: geography
geology
natural-sciences
glosses: Part of a tectonic plate that is being, or has been, subducted.
examples: text: Next week they'll pour the slab that the shed will sit on.
topics: business
construction
manufacturing
glosses: A poured-concrete foundation for a building.
topics: geometry
mathematics
sciences
glosses: 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.
examples: text: Near-synonym: tax bracket
text: The 56th meeting of the GST Council [for the Goods and Services Tax] on September 3, 2025 will be remembered as a defining milestone in India's tax history. These reforms go far beyond tax rates and structures. They represent a decisive shift towards a simpler, fairer, and growth-oriented system that is aligned with the aspirations of a Viksit Bharat 2047. A long-standing demand of both industry and consumers has been simplification of the multiple GST slabs (5%, 12%, 18%, and 28%). The move to a transparent “Simple Tax”, with just two rates, 18% as the Standard Rate and 5% as the Merit Rate, along with a 40% de-merit rate for a select few goods — is transformational.
ref: 2025 September 5, Chandrajit Banerjee, “GST 2.0 is a landmark in India's tax journey. The simplification of the multiple GST slabs is an example of people's reform”, in The Hindu:
topics: economics
government
sciences
taxation
glosses: Any of the several portions or tiers in a tax rate plan.
glosses: A flat, sealed plastic case that encloses a flat collector's item, such as a coin or a trading card.
examples: text: Video screens have also become a standard part of slab interiors.
ref: 2016, Langston Collin Wilkins, “Officially Ridin' Swangas: Slab as tangible and intangible cultural heritage in Houston, Texas”, in Michelle L. Stefano, Peter Davis, editor, The Routledge Companion to Intangible Cultural Heritage, page 206:
text: 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.
ref: 2021 March 23, Peter Holley, “They Just Moved Into an Austin Neighborhood. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions.”, in Texas Monthly:
hypernyms: sled
land yacht#Noun
boat
<
car
<
motor vehicle
<
vehicle
glosses: A large, luxury pre-1980 General Motors vehicle, particularly a Buick, Oldsmobile, or Cadillac.
Derived terms: word: mat slab
word: mud slab
word: paving slab
word: slabby
word: slab cake
word: slab hut
word: slab line
word: slab on grade
word: slab pull
word: slab serif
word: slab-serif
word: slab-sided
word: slab track
word: slab-track
word: split slab
word: two-way joist slab
word: waffle slab