slice

Meanings

Noun

• That which is thin and broad.
• A thin, broad piece cut off.
• An amount of anything.
• A piece of pizza.
• A snack consisting of pastry with savoury filling.
• A broad, thin piece of plaster.
• A knife with a thin, broad blade for taking up or serving fish; also, a spatula for spreading anything, as paint or ink.
• A salver, platter, or tray.
• A plate of iron with a handle, forming a kind of chisel, or a spadelike implement, variously proportioned, and used for various purposes, as for stripping the planking from a vessel's side, for cutting blubber from a whale, or for stirring a fire of coals; a slice bar; a peel; a fire shovel.
• One of the wedges by which the cradle and the ship are lifted clear of the building blocks to prepare for launching.
• A removable sliding bottom to a galley.
• A shot that (for the right-handed player) curves unintentionally to the right. See fade, hook, draw
• Any of a class of heavy cakes or desserts made in a tray and cut out into squarish slices.
• A section of image taken of an internal organ using MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), CT (computed tomography), or various forms of x-ray.
• A hawk's or falcon's dropping which squirts at an angle other than vertical. (See mute.)
• A contiguous portion of an array.

Verb

• To cut into slices.
• To cut with an edge utilizing a drawing motion.
• To clear (e.g. a fire, or the grate bars of a furnace) by means of a slice bar.
• To hit the shuttlecock with the racket at an angle, causing it to move sideways and downwards.
• To hit a shot that slices (travels from left to right for a right-handed player).
• To angle the blade so that it goes too deeply into the water when starting to take a stroke.
• To kick the ball so that it goes in an unintended direction, at too great an angle or too high.
• To hit the ball with a stroke that causes a spin, resulting in the ball swerving or staying low after a bounce.

Adjective

• Having the properties of a slice knot.

Origin

• From Middle English sclise, sklise, from Old French esclice, esclis, deverbal of esclicer, esclicier, from Frankish *slitjan ("to split up"), from Proto-Germanic *slitjaną, from Proto-Germanic *slītaną ("to split, tear apart"), from Proto-Indo-European *sleyd- ("to rend, injure, crumble"). Akin to Old High German sliz, gisliz, Old High German slīzan ("to tear"), Old English slītan ("to split up"). More at slite, slit.