Word.ws English Dictionary

slat

/slæt/

slat noun: a thin, narrow strip or bar of wood (lath), metal, or plastic.

Noun

slat (plural slats)

  1. A thin, narrow strip or bar of wood (lath), metal, or plastic.
    • slats of a window blind
    • To keep people out, the Nature Conservancy, which owns the cave, has blocked off the entrance with huge iron slats.2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Picador, →ISBN, page 208
    Synonyms:
    billet, flitch, spline, batten
  2. A control surface that extends forwards and downwards from the leading edge of a wing, leaving a gap between it and the leading edge, in order to modify the airflow around the wing so as to allow flight at a higher angle of attack without stalling, lowering the aircraft's stall speed.
  3. (slang) A ski.
    • I never got down that hill without losing at least one of my skis! Clarence didn't lose his slats. The straps went over his boots and held them in place. If he fell, he risked breaking a foot or leg, but the slats stayed on.2005, Richard V. Shriver, Gold to Refine, page 31
  4. A thin piece of stone; a slate.
  5. A drop (of rain or water), a splash.
    • […] slats of rain broke upon the surface.1907, Dixon Scott, Liverpool, page 36
    • A slat of rain drove into his face. It was pitch dark but the sea was calmer and the bucking of the ship had lessened.1937 04, Collier's

Verb

slat (third-person singular simple present slats, present participle slatting, simple past and past participle slatted)

  1. To construct or provide with slats.
  2. To slap or strike; to beat, pummel; to hurl or throw down violently.
    • Men[dozo]. How did you kill him? / Mal[evole]. Slatted his braines out, then ſowſt him in the brinie ſea. / Men. Braind him and drownd him too?c. 1603 (date written), Iohn Marston, The Malcontent, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for William Aspley, […], published 1604, →OCLC, Act IV, scene iii
  3. To throw (something, especially water or liquid) down; to slam or splash (something) down.
    • […] a nudge o' kissing-crust After thy leeky broth: I've warmed thy porridge on tha trivet, Jimmy, zay prayers avore 'e have it, And doant 'e slat tha clath.1867, William Frederick Rock, Jim and Nell: A Dramatic Poem in the Dialect of North Devon, page 35
    • […] slatting water over everything in the dory.1921, Raymond McFarland, Sons of the Sea, page 147
  4. To fall; to beat (against something).
    • […] sending solid grey water slatting against her wheelhouse windows.1938, Outdoor Life
    • […] water slatting over the rail. The salt caked on her face and when the sun came up, it was as though her face was being pot-roasted - with salt.1943 04, Collier's: Incorporating Features of the American Magazine
  5. (UK, dialectal) To split; to crack.
    • Both head-peeces and habergeons were slat and dashed a peeces.1609, Ammianus Marcellinus, translated by Philemon Holland, The Roman Historie, […], London: […] Adam Jslip, →OCLC
  6. To set on; to incite.

slat meaning in Kannada

slat in Kannada

ದಬ್ಬೆ, ಪಟ್ಟಿ

Examples of slat in a sentence

  • […] a slat of rain and wind gusts which whitened the water where the river made its bend.1956, The Saturday Evening Post:
  • […] by the sound she knew that he was slatting water from his oilskins.1923 August 11, The Saturday Evening Post, page 88:
  • Mac stood over me, slatting water off his arms, his face purple.1953, Rogers Terrill, The Argosy Book of Sea Stories, page 136:
  • The hose came in hand over hand, as the sailormen say, and in a few moments the end came switching down on them, slatting water in all directions.2011 October 1, William Hope Hodgson, The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Ghost Pirates & Other Revenants of The Sea, Start...

All 18 example sentences with slat

Synonyms of slat

Forms of slat

Noun
pluralslats
Verb
third-person singular presentslats
present participleslatting
past participleslatted
pastslatted

Origin of slat

From Middle English slatte, sklatte, sklat, sclat, from Old French esclat (“piece broken or split off, shiver, splinter”), from Old French esclater (“to split, burst”), from Frankish *slaitijan (“to split, break”), from Proto-Germanic *slītaną (“to rend, split”). Doublet of slate and éclat.

Words formed from slat

Words that rhyme with slat

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about slat

What does slat mean?
Slat means a thin, narrow strip or bar of wood (lath), metal, or plastic.
What is slat in Kannada?
Slat in Kannada is ದಬ್ಬೆ, ಪಟ್ಟಿ. See Slat meaning in Kannada.
How do you use slat in a sentence?
[…] a slat of rain and wind gusts which whitened the water where the river made its bend.
What part of speech is slat?
Slat can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce slat?
Slat is pronounced /slæt/.
What is the plural of slat?
The plural of slat is slats.

Words near slat in the dictionary

  1. slashtag
  2. slashtags
  3. slashy
  4. slashzine
  5. slashzines
  6. slat
  7. slatback
  8. slatbacks
  9. slatch
  10. slatches
  11. slate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: slat (page history and authors); slat (Kannada Wiktionary) (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-slat.wav.

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