Slew

How to spell slew

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce slew

What does slew mean?

1. nounA large number or quantity of something, used informally.
2. verbPast tense of slay: killed in a violent or deliberate way.
3. verbTo swing, twist, or turn something heavily and sharply around, often used of vehicles or ship gear.

Slew in a sentence

• noun

  A slew of complaints arrived after the sudden price increase.

• verb

  In the old legend, the knight slew the dragon to free the village.

• verb

  The crane operator can slew the load to the right when the deck is clear.

• noun

  The new manager inherited a slew of unfinished projects.

• verb

  The hero of the tale slew the giant with a single blow.

• verb

  Icy roads can make a heavy van slew sideways at the bend.

Where does slew come from?

Language of origin: Celtic

This little word actually hides three separate stories. The most common modern sense, a 'slew' meaning a great number of things, came into American English in the nineteenth century from the Irish word slua (also spelled sluagh), which meant a crowd, a host, or a multitude; speakers borrowed it during waves of Irish migration and it kept its loose, informal flavour. A quite different 'slew' is simply the old past tense of the verb slay, descending from the Old English slean 'to strike or kill', so 'he slew the beast' is the same family as 'slaughter'. A third sense, to swing or twist something heavily around, especially aboard a ship, appeared in the 1700s in nautical writing of uncertain origin and is sometimes also spelled 'slue'. Because that variant 'slue' exists and because the look-alike 'slough' sits nearby, the simple -ew ending is the main thing to fix in memory.

How the word is built

• slew (single root; in the 'large number' sense from Irish slua 'crowd, host'; as a verb, an irregular past form of slay)