Word: slab Part of Speech: noun 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. Pronunciation: /slæb/ 1. A large, flat piece of solid material; a solid object that is large and flat. Example: 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. Example: 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. 2. A paving stone; a flagstone. 3. A carton containing 24 cans (chiefly of beer). Labels: Australia Example: The Australians murder a few slabs of beer and the New Zealanders murder a few vowels. Example: The older man bought a slab of Coca-Cola at the counter and carried it out ahead of the younger man. 4. An outside piece taken from a log or timber when sawing it into boards, planks, etc. 5. The slack part of a sail. 6. A very large wave. Example: After being towed into a massive slab, Dorian dropped down the face and caught a rail, putting him in a near-impossible situation. Example: In August 2000 he successfully rode a slab of unfathomable power at Teahupo′o. 7. The amount by which a cache can grow or shrink, used in memory allocation. 8. Part of a tectonic plate that is being, or has been, subducted. Example: Being driven by the gravitational force, the subducting Pacific slab continues to sink down to the boundary between the upper and lower mantle […] 9. A poured-concrete foundation for a building. Example: Next week they'll pour the slab that the shed will sit on. 10. 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. 11. Any of the several portions or tiers in a tax rate plan. Labels: India, especially Example: Near-synonym: tax bracket Example: 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. 12. A flat, sealed plastic case that encloses a flat collector's item, such as a coin or a trading card. 13. A large, luxury pre-1980 General Motors vehicle, particularly a Buick, Oldsmobile, or Cadillac. Labels: US, slang Example: Video screens have also become a standard part of slab interiors. Example: 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. 14. Ellipsis of slab avalanche. Labels: abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis, physical