Slab
nounA broad, flat, fairly thick piece of solid material such as stone, concrete, wood, or food.
How to spell slab
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce slab
What does slab mean?
- nounA broad, flat, fairly thick piece of solid material such as stone, concrete, wood, or food.
Slab in a sentence
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The builders poured a concrete slab for the new garage floor.
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She cut a thick slab of cheese for the sandwich.
Where does slab come from?
Language of origin: Unknown
Slab appeared in Middle English around the 1300s, when it meant a large, flat, fairly thick piece of stone, wood, or other solid material. Its precise origin is uncertain, which is why dictionaries usually flag it as obscure rather than tracing a clean line back to Latin or French. It may be related to Old French esclapper, meaning to split or to cut, since a slab is essentially something split or sliced off in a broad flat sheet. Over time the word broadened from stone and timber to cover slices of meat, cake, and concrete, and it took on the looser sense of any thick, flattish chunk. The spelling has stayed reassuringly plain, a short, blunt, single-syllable word that has never picked up the silent letters or doubled vowels that trip people up elsewhere.
How the word is built
- slab (single root, no affixes; a flat thick piece)
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