slat

slat¹ to fling, to strike, to flap

Etymology

The word for the verb "to fling, to strike" is of uncertain origin:^[1] the Shorter Oxford calls it unknown.^[5] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate takes it as perhaps Scandinavian,^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged as probably so,^[6] and Collins and Dictionary.com are firmer, all comparing Old Norse sletta (“to slap, to splash, to throw”).^[3][7][6] The OED grants that some senses resemble the Old Norse verb, but finds that this would not readily explain the word's currency in south-western dialects, and suggests that the sense of flapping may be partly imitative, like slatter.^[1] Weekley also took the nautical verb as probably imitative.^[8] Green's Dictionary of Slang explains the American use as making the victim resemble a slat, which treats it as the word for the strip.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To fling or dash with some force: before 1250, in the Ancrene Riwle, in the OED.^[1] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also has the 13th century,^[6] but Merriam-Webster's Collegiate dates the verb only to about 1587.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From throwing with force the verb moved to striking and beating (1577), and the noun slat, a slap or a sharp blow, appears in Cotgrave's dictionary of 1611.^[1][5] These uses are now chiefly dialectal in England.^[6][5][10] An American vocabulary of 1816 records it as meaning to throw down with violence.^[9] Sailors applied it to sails flapping violently in the wind, first recorded in Dana's Two Years Before the Mast (1840), a book that also has the noun for a sudden gust.^[1] Dictionary.com dates the verb only to 1815–25.^[7] From about 1889 it was used more generally of anything that flaps or slaps.^[1]

Timeline

• before 1250 – to fling, to dash with some force.^[1]
• 1577 – to strike, to beat.^[1]
• 1611 – noun, a slap.^[1][5]
• 1816 – to throw down with violence, in American use.^[9]
• 1840 – of sails, to flap violently; noun, a sudden gust of wind.^[1]
• 1889 – in other contexts, to flap or slap.^[1]

Meanings

Verb

1. To flap violently, as a sail does in the wind, or to move with such a motion or sound: The loose canvas slatted all night.^[6][1][5]
2. (dialect) To hurl or throw with force.^[6][5][10]
3. (dialect) To strike or beat.^[6][1][5]

Noun

1. (dialect) A slap or sharp blow.^[1][5]
2. (rare) A sudden gust of wind.^[1][5]

slat² thin strip

Etymology

The word for the strip is inherited from Middle English sclat, later also slat,^{[11][12][13][6]} borrowed from Old French esclat (“split piece, chip, splinter”), now French éclat, with the loss of its first syllable.^{[1][13][14][5][15][16]} The French noun comes from esclater (“to break, splinter, burst”).^{[13][12][14][17]} The OED calls the origin of that verb doubtful.^[1] Etymonline and Barnhart take it as probably from Frankish *slaitan (“to tear, slit”),^[13][12] and compare Old High German slīzan and Old English slītan, the source of slit;^[13][12][17] the American Heritage Dictionary likewise says probably Germanic.^[18] Ayto gives a second theory, a Vulgar Latin *esclatāre or *exclatāre from a base imitating the sound of breaking.^[17] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate instead traces the strip to sclate, the Middle English form of slate.^[2] The two English words are close relatives, since slate comes from the French feminine form, esclate,^[17][16] and the Middle English Dictionary finds them often impossible to tell apart.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A slate or tile for roofing: sclat is recorded in 1302–03 by Barnhart^[12] and about 1300 by Etymonline.^[13] The earliest quotations in the Middle English Dictionary and the OED are in the Wycliffite Bible, before 1382 and about 1384, where a sick man is let down through the roof "by the sclattis".^[11][1][8]

Semantic evolution

For its first centuries the word meant a piece of slate, for roofing and, in Chaucer, for writing on.^[1][19] In this sense it lives on only in dialect, in Scotland, Ireland and England.^[1][10][6] The idea of a thin flat piece then passed to other materials, and by 1764 slat meant a long narrow strip of wood or metal.^{[1][12][13][15]} Etymonline describes this as an extension,^[13] while Weekley thought the later sense apparently due to Irish slat (“rod”);^[8] Skeat rejected any such Gaelic or Irish source.^[20] From the strip came technical uses in carriages (1794), basket-making (1837) and aircraft wings (1931).^[1][5] American slang took slats for the ribs, from 1895 in Green's Dictionary of Slang and 1898 in the OED.^[9][1] The verb, first "to cover with slates" (about 1475), came to mean "to furnish with slats": 1874 in the OED, 1886 in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged.^[1][12][6]

Timeline

• 1302–03 – sclat, a slate.^[12] Etymonline gives about 1300.^[13]
• before 1382 – a tile or slate for roofing, in the Wycliffite Bible.^[11][12] The OED cites another manuscript, about 1384.^[1]
• c. 1390 – a slate for writing on, in Chaucer.^[1][19]
• before 1400 – the spelling slat.^[12]
• c. 1475 – verb, to cover with slates.^[1][12]
• 1764 – a long narrow strip of wood or metal.^[1][12][2]
• 1794 – a strip of this kind in a carriage.^[1]
• 1837 – the framework of a basket.^[1][5]
• 1874 – verb, to place or fix slats.^[1] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster date it to 1886.^[12][6]
• 1895 – slats, the ribs, in American slang.^[9] The OED has it from 1898.^[1]
• 1931 – a part of an aeroplane wing that forms a slot at the leading edge.^[1]

Meanings

Noun

1. A thin narrow strip of wood, metal or plastic, as in a Venetian blind, a fence or the base of a bed: She could see the street through the slats of the shutter.^{[3][6][18][5]}
2. (aeronautics) A movable or fixed airfoil along the leading edge of an aircraft wing, which improves lift at low speed.^{[3][18][1][7]}
3. (slang) slats: the ribs.^[18][1][9] Also the buttocks.^[7][5]
4. (dialect) A piece of slate.^{[6][1][10][5]}

Verb

1. To provide or make with slats: slatting the sides of a crate.^[3][18][6]
2. (dialect) To cover with slates.^[1][5]

Word family

• slatted
• slat-back