Word.ws English Dictionary

slash and burn

slash and burn adjective: rough, coarse and lacking finesse, performed with little skill.

Adjective

slash and burn (not comparable)

  1. Rough, coarse and lacking finesse, performed with little skill.
    • His slash and burn approach to management resulted in few friends and many enemies.

Noun

slash and burn (uncountable)

  1. A technique in agriculture where plant matter is roughly cut down and then burned over to prepare fields for the next crop.

Verb

slash and burn (third-person singular simple present slashes and burns, present participle slashing and burning, simple past and past participle slashed and burned or slashed and burnt)

  1. To apply the slash and burn technique.
    • We'll slash and burn this week and plant next.
    • Villagers fled into the bush, setting up temporary camps. A few live there still, slashing and burning to create small clearings, growing what they can, then moving on.2026 April 21, Cal Flyn, “On the trail with the hunters who believe shooting big game can save Africa’s wildlife”, in The Guardian

slash and burn meaning in Arabic

slash and burn in Arabic

technique
القطع والحرق

Forms of slash and burn

Adjective
alternative formslash-and-burn
Verb
third-person singular presentslashes and burns
present participleslashing and burning
past participleslashed and burned
pastslashed and burned
past participleslashed and burnt
pastslashed and burnt

Questions about slash and burn

What does slash and burn mean?
Slash and burn means rough, coarse and lacking finesse, performed with little skill.
What is slash and burn in Arabic?
Slash and burn in Arabic is القطع والحرق. See Slash and burn meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is slash and burn?
Slash and burn can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.

Words near slash and burn in the dictionary

  1. slarted
  2. slarting
  3. slarts
  4. SLAs
  5. slash
  6. slash and burn
  7. slash bunt
  8. slash bunts
  9. slash chord
  10. slash chords
  11. slash dupe

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: slash and burn (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-slash and burn.wav.

Cite this entry: “slash and burn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/slash_and_burn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.