to cut or lay about (a person or thing) with sharp sweeping strokes, as with a sword, knife, etc
2.
to lash with a whip
3.
to make large gashes in: to slash tyres
4.
to reduce (prices, etc) drastically
5.
chiefly (US) to criticize harshly
6.
to slit (the outer fabric of a garment) so that the lining material is revealed
7.
to clear (scrub or undergrowth) by cutting
—n
8.
a sharp, sweeping stroke, as with a sword or whip
9.
a cut or rent made by such a stroke
10.
a decorative slit in a garment revealing the lining material
11.
(US), (Canadian)
a. littered wood chips and broken branches that remain after trees have been cut down
b. an area so littered
12.
diagonal, forward slash, separatrix, shilling mark, solidus, stroke, Also called: virgule a short oblique stroke used in text to separate items of information, such as days, months, and years in dates (18/7/80), alternative words (and/or), numerator from denominator in fractions (55/103), etc
13.
slang (Brit) the act of urinating (esp in the phrase have a slash)
14.
a genre of erotic fiction written by women, to appeal to women
[C14 slaschen, perhaps from Old French esclachier to break]
slashing (ˈslæʃɪŋ)
—adj
aggressively or harshly critical (esp in the phrase slashing attack)
1382, "to cut with a stroke of a blade or whip," perhaps from M.Fr. esclachier "to break," variant of esclater "to break, splinter" (see slat). In ref. to prices, it is attested from 1906. The noun meaning "a cutting stroke with a weapon" is recorded from 1576; sense of "slit
in a garment" is from 1615; that of "open tract in a forest" is first attested 1825, Amer.Eng. As a punctuation mark in writing or printing, it is recorded from 1961. Slash-and-burn method of clearing forest for cultivation is from 1919.
n. a drink of liquor. : Just one slash, and I have to be going.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition. Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Example sentences
Slashing prices is a sure sign of lack of confidence.
The effect of you helping to argue for slashing manned space programs is not that money becomes available for science.
Far from seeing the bottom in corporate profits, markets have been slashing forecasts.
Hurricanes bring winds and slashing rains that flood streets, flatten homes, and leave survivors struggling to pick up the pieces.
Of course, slashing the workforce now may not make sense for some start-ups.
There is more than a whiff of panic about slashing rates little more than week before a scheduled meeting.
But the potential backlash against slashing the bank's staff and getting it out of lending would surely be epic.
There are fish that are delivered out of our hatcheries that have a little bit of the slashing on the throat.
Any minute, they thought, the metal would start slashing through his organs.
One reason why the downturn was so severe is that companies met demand by slashing inventories.