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What is "slab"

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slab
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
slab
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a slab of chocolate (=a large flat piece)
▪ They shared a large slab of chocolate.
a slab of ice (=a thick flat piece of ice)
▪ Huge slabs of ice drifted down the frozen river.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
concrete
▪ Previous development may also have left old foundations, concrete slabs and basements which must be identified and quantified for additional cost.
▪ Very important to know, because suppose you got permafrost under your concrete slab?
▪ Now the club lies under pulverised concrete slabs.
▪ Speedo changed position on the concrete slab.
▪ The wall was topped with rolls of barbed wire and jagged ends of glass stuck into the eight-foot concrete slabs.
▪ Crisp precast concrete slabs are teamed with brick, the latter helping to soften the overall surface.
▪ Most popular are precast concrete paviours and slabs, but look around for the more interesting surface textures and designs.
▪ This block is made out of a steel structure covered with concrete slabs and masked with a red brick shell.
flat
▪ The face of the Adjudicator inExtremis seemed to be composed of flat green slabs.
▪ When I got to higher ground, I sat on a long, flat slab of white rock in a salmon-pink sea.
▪ To place a flat slab of stone across each angle of the square thus providing an octagonal basis.
▪ The area is also wide and spacious, the main roof itself being quite remarkably formed with huge flat slabs of stone.
▪ The river, to my right, was a long, flat slab of grey.
great
▪ And he had the jaw to go with it, a great slab of a jaw.
▪ In the moonlight it appeared more like a great slab of concrete than a refuge for ducks.
▪ There are great slabs of aluminium and a leather shelf which runs the entire width of the car.
▪ Then I lay over a great slab of rock which warmed the water almost to bath-heat.
▪ One of the occupied tables contained a man and woman and child, tucking in to great slabs of meat.
▪ Duwayne ploughs stolidly up and down the length of the pool several times like a great slab of walrus.
▪ As we passed over the Thames we paused to look at a steamer unloading great slabs of white and brown marble.
▪ The Hilton is absolutely undecorated, consisting of great columns and slabs of reflective glass which return images of sky and church.
huge
▪ The most ancient burial chambers consisted of huge stone slabs forming a chamber with entrances through which further corpses might be introduced.
▪ A white fist of cloud enclosed and released the huge slab of Huayna Picchu which rose up behind it.
▪ The first wave is an absolute monster which dumps a huge slab of water into the boat.
▪ He had found himself trapped in a room with doors made up of huge, sliding slabs of rock all round it.
▪ The area is also wide and spacious, the main roof itself being quite remarkably formed with huge flat slabs of stone.
▪ The centre was occupied by a huge stone slab with twice as many sides as a square.
large
▪ There is a central lane 1.4 metres wide, which is made of two lines of large rectangular stone slabs.
▪ Central to the buffet was a seafood display around a large, clear slab of iceberg illuminated from behind.
thick
▪ The public telephones are built on very thick stone slabs, causing difficulty in getting into the box.
▪ We figured perhaps four hundred people would each get a thick slab of fresh bread this morning.
▪ The modern ones were like fallen doors. Thick slabs of shiny granite.
▪ The magma would then cool and harden, adding to the four-mile-#thick slab of moving crust.
thin
▪ Sometimes, where a richer effect was required, a veneer of thin slabs of veined gypsum was added.
▪ The figure is carved from a thin slab of Carrara marble.
▪ Typically, the summit was only to be gained by desperately thin and unprotected slab climbing.
▪ They are refusing adamantly even to investigate thin slab technology.
■ NOUN
granite
▪ The gutter between the sidewalk and granite slabs is cleared of leaves and litter.
▪ The path teetered down into a side gorge - and then the granite slabs appeared.
▪ It was a 3, 000-foot granite slab, rising in total isolation from a flat plain.
▪ They were on a granite slab that had fallen centuries ago and lay by the shore with the water rippling at it.
marble
▪ The goose lay, neatly trussed, on a cold, marble slab.
▪ On a marble slab near to the cooker there was a joint of ham and a fat salami ready for slicing.
▪ In the Mortuary Like soft cheeses they bulge sideways on the marble slabs, helpless, waiting to be washed.
▪ He lay on the marble slab in the centre of the tiny oblong chapel like a king lying in state.
▪ Consequently she kept digging into the supply of tissues that Lee kept on the marble slab in the kitchen.
▪ Our favourite photo was taken of me on the marble slab.
▪ We were shown the great marble slab covering Arthur's coffin and the chalice well which provided water for the brothers.
▪ Sister Martha's hair is cut off with a pair of gold scissors, she lies arms outflung on the marble slab.
paving
▪ The crazy paving slabs came up easily enough.
▪ All old stone paving slabs deserve retention, as do granite kerbs.
▪ The most satisfactory arrangement is to have the cable connector concealed beneath a small paving slab.
▪ Special paving slabs, which make it easier for blind and partially-sighted pedestrians to distinguish the crossing have been introduced.
▪ The lighter paving slabs are easy to lay, but heavy ones can be difficult to handle.
▪ Steps can also be made from paving slabs and bricks or blocks.
stone
▪ The most ancient burial chambers consisted of huge stone slabs forming a chamber with entrances through which further corpses might be introduced.
▪ It was a rough undressed stone slab 21 ins.
▪ This high western section was remarkably well preserved, the stone slabs tightly laid, and the primitive stairway safe and solid.
▪ The floor was a mixture of stone slabs and floorboards.
▪ There is a central lane 1.4 metres wide, which is made of two lines of large rectangular stone slabs.
▪ She had spent a fear-filled night beneath a stone slab in the meat cellar and, what was more, completely alone.
▪ Floors were frequently made from bare wooden boards or stone slab.
▪ The public telephones are built on very thick stone slabs, causing difficulty in getting into the box.
■ VERB
lay
▪ Klift lay beneath the fallen slab, broken in body and mind.
▪ Then I lay over a great slab of rock which warmed the water almost to bath-heat.
▪ If you have a patio, you may want to lay slabs so that the path matches it.
▪ He lay on the marble slab in the centre of the tiny oblong chapel like a king lying in state.
lie
▪ Klift lay beneath the fallen slab, broken in body and mind.
▪ Now the club lies under pulverised concrete slabs.
▪ Then I lay over a great slab of rock which warmed the water almost to bath-heat.
▪ He lay on the marble slab in the centre of the tiny oblong chapel like a king lying in state.
▪ Nothing, however, is more pathetic than a solitary corpse lying on a cold slab in a disused shed.
▪ I'd be more interesting to you if I were dead and lain out on your slab.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Slabs of concrete had been used to build a pathway for people to walk on.
▪ His grave is covered by a huge marble slab.
▪ New concrete slabs have been laid in the back yard.
▪ The butcher's counter was covered in huge slabs of red meat and the air smelled of blood.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Beneath the slabs was the first indication of how thorough the builder of the pond mark one had been.
▪ He was able to go directly to the railroad supervisor and convince him to change the pace of slab deliveries.
▪ Since that moment, the black slab had done nothing.
▪ The floor was a mixture of stone slabs and floorboards.
▪ The palette knife marks, the smooth slabs of even colour neutralise any notions of the personal autograph.
▪ The superintendent in the steel company needed power to get a more efficient delivery schedule of slabs.
▪ The wall was topped with rolls of barbed wire and jagged ends of glass stuck into the eight-foot concrete slabs.
▪ Then and only then it was that the vast seamless blocks and slabs of the buried city came back to light.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Slab

Slab \Slab\, n. That which is slimy or viscous; moist earth; mud; also, a puddle. [Obs.]
--Evelyn.

Slab

Slab \Slab\, n. [OE. slabbe, of uncertain origin; perhaps originally meaning, a smooth piece, and akin to slape, Icel. sleipr slippery, and E. slip, v. i.]

  1. A thin piece of anything, especially of marble or other stone, having plane surfaces.
    --Gwilt.

  2. An outside piece taken from a log or timber in sawing it into boards, planks, etc.

  3. (Zo["o]l.) The wryneck. [Prov. Eng.]

  4. (Naut.) The slack part of a sail.

    Slab line (Naut.), a line or small rope by which seamen haul up the foot of the mainsail or foresail.
    --Totten.

Slab

Slab \Slab\,

  1. [Cf. Gael. & Ir. slaib mud, mire left on a river strand, and E. slop puddle.] Thick; viscous. [Obs.]

    Make the gruel thick and sla


  2. --Shak.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
slab

late 13c., "large, flat mass," of unknown origin, possibly related to Old French escopel, escalpe "thin fragment of wood," which according to Klein is possibly a Gaulish word (compare Breton scolp, Welsh ysgolp "splinter, chip"). But OED rejects this on formal grounds. Meaning "rectangular block of pre-cast concrete used in building" is from 1927. Slab-sided is "having flat sides like slabs," hence "tall and lank" (1817, American English).

Wiktionary
slab

Etymology 1 n. 1 (context archaic English) mud, sludge. 2 A large, flat piece of solid material; a solid object that is large and flat. 3 A paving stone; a flagstone. 4 (context Australia English) A carton containing twenty-four cans of beer. 5 An outside piece taken from a log or timber when sawing it into boards, planks, etc. 6 A bird, the wryneck. 7 (context nautical English) The slack part of a sail. 8 (context slang English) A large, luxury pre-1980 General Motors vehicle, particularly a Buick, Oldsmobile or Cadillac. 9 (context surfing English) A very large wave. 10 (context computing English) A sequence of 12 adjacent bits, serving as a byte in some computers. vb. (context transitive English) To make something into a slab. Etymology 2

  1. thick; viscous Etymology 3

    n. (context Southern US slang English) A car that has been modified with equipment such as loudspeakers, lights, special paint, hydraulics, and any other accessories that add to the style of the vehicle.

Related phrases:
WordNet
slab

  1. n. block consisting of a thick piece of something

  2. [also: slabbing, slabbed]

Wikipedia
Slab

Slab or SLAB may refer to:

Slab (comics)

Slab (Christopher Anderson), a fictional supervillain in the Marvel Comics Universe. His first appearance was in X-Factor #74.

Slab (geology)

In geology, a slab is the portion of a tectonic plate that is being subducted.

Slabs constitute an important part of the global plate tectonic system. They drive plate tectonics both by pulling along the lithosphere to which they are attached in a processes known as slab pull and by inciting currents in the mantle ( slab suction). They cause volcanism due to flux melting of the mantle wedge, and they affect the flow and thermal evolution of the Earth's mantle. Their motion can cause dynamic uplift and subsidence of the Earth's surface, forming shallow seaways and potentially rearranging drainage patterns.

Slabs have been imaged down to the seismic discontinuities between the upper and lower mantle and to the core–mantle boundary. Slab subduction is the mechanism by which lithospheric material is mixed back into the Earth's mantle.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "slab".

The wizard had drawn a seven-pointed star in lime-wash on a slab that had been part of the abutments of the Old Kingdom bridge.

A single adamantine bridge, a narrow slab of metal without guardrails and wide enough for only two or three men abreast, spanned the moat.

Even from his viewpoint more than ten meters away, Aiken could see the slabs of thick oak tremble from the force of rhythmic smashes.

Where, a second earlier, there had been a squad of InfiniDim Enterprises executives with a rocket launcher standing on an elegant terraced plaza paved with large slabs of lustrous stone cut from the ancient alabastrum quarries of Zentalquabula there was now, instead, a bit of a pit with nasty bits in it.

Spilled coals were scattered across the paving slabs and atop the rumpled velvet, burning holes in the rich pile, and the glass alembic was now a jagged splash of greenish shards.

In the meantime, fearing lest Giovanni might think of sending him out at any moment, he waited till Pasquale had brought him water in the morning, and then raised the stone, as he had done before, took the box out of the earth and hid it in the cool end of the annealing oven, while he replaced the slab.

It looked like nothing more than a cairn marker, a huge, elongated slab of stone tilted upward at the southernmost end, as if pointing the way across the Nenoth Odhan to Aren or some other, more recent destination.

Gradually Jed came to enjoy seeing her there, to see the windows of the old house open, to hear voices once more on that side of the shop, and to catch glimpses of Babbie dancing in and out over the shining mica slab at the door.

I walking distance there existed multiple slabs of barbecued ribs superior to any I had ever tasted.

He has cleared out the sand from one of the temples, and found there eleven slabs with figures of a king making offerings to the god Horus of Behen or Wady Halfah in a chamber in front of the Hall of Columns.

The metal slab was beveled inward, and thicker than one would expect, sitting easily in the shaped lip of the well.

Of stone bridges in Great Britain, the earliest were the cyclopean bridges still existing on Dartmoor, consisting of stone piers bridged by stone slabs.

The exposed foundations of the eastern and western walls, where the torrent has washed away the northern enceinte, show that, after the fashion of ancient Egypt, sandstone slabs have been laid underground, the calcaire being reserved for the hypaethral part.

At the bottom, the guards gripped their captive, while Chun Laro stooped to raise a round slab of metal that looked like the cover of a manhole.

This party consisted of some of the authorities of the city and some porters, bearing on a slab of verd antique a magnificent cinerary vase, that was about to be placed in the Campo.