Slashing

How to spell slashing

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce slashing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does slashing mean?

1. verbCutting something with sweeping strokes, or reducing an amount sharply and drastically.
2. adjectiveVigorous, fierce, or harshly critical in manner.
3. nounIn ice hockey, the offence of striking an opponent with the stick.

Slashing in a sentence

• verb

  The company is slashing prices to clear last season's stock.

• adjective

  The magazine published a slashing review of the overpriced hotel.

• noun

  The defenceman was sent to the box for slashing in the second period.

• verb

  He spent the afternoon slashing at the thick brush with a machete.

• adjective

  The team mounted a slashing attack in the closing minutes of the match.

• noun

  The referee called slashing after the hard chop across the wrists.

Where does slashing come from?

Language of origin: French

The base verb 'slash' appeared in English in the 1300s with the sense of striking or cutting with a sweeping blow, and its exact source is genuinely uncertain. The most common suggestion traces it to the Old French 'esclachier', meaning 'to break' or 'to smash', though the link is far from secure. Some scholars instead treat it as an imitative or echoic word, coined to suggest the swift hissing sound of a blade cutting through the air. By the 1500s 'slash' had also gathered the meaning of making long cuts in cloth, a fashion of the period, and the figurative sense of 'cutting down' costs or prices arrived much later. The form 'slashing' is simply the verb with the ordinary '-ing' ending, and because the root has a single 'sh' and one final consonant, the spelling holds no real doubling trap.

How the word is built

• slash (to cut with a sweeping stroke)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)