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slate

Pronunciation: /sleɪt/

The English word “slate” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A piece of such stone, usually cut into a rectangular shape, used as a tile for flooring, roofing, etc.; (uncountable) such tiles collectively, or the material from which they are made.
  2. A piece of other material used as a roofing tile.
  3. A generally rectangular piece, originally of certain types of stone and now of other materials, often in a frame, used for writing on with a thin rod of the same or another stone (a slate pencil) or with chalk; a small chalkboard.
  4. Synonym of tablet computer (“a hand-held portable computer in the form of a tablet with a touch screen interface”).
  5. A sequentially numbered session of recording a film.
  6. Information about a film recording which is inserted at the start of the recording, or printed on a videotape label etc.
  7. A record, for example, of money owed.
  8. A range of things; also, a schedule.
  9. A collection of films released during a certain period, either from one studio or from a certain film industry (such as Hollywood) as a whole.
  10. A group or list of candidates for appointment or election to an office; also, a group of candidates or electors with affiliated political views.
  11. A fine-grained homogeneous sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash which has been metamorphosed so that it cleaves easily into thin layers.
  12. The bluish-grey colour of most slate (etymology 1, noun sense 4).

adjective

  1. Having the bluish-grey colour of slate (noun etymology 1, noun sense 4).

verb

  1. To cover (a building, or part of a building such as a floor or roof) with slates (noun etymology 1, noun sense 1.1).
  2. To appoint or designate (someone or something); also, to nominate or propose (someone or something); specifically (politics), to nominate or propose (a candidate) for an office.
  3. To expect (something) with a (strong) degree of certainty; to anticipate, to predict.
  4. To plan or schedule (something).
  5. To provide synchronization information about (a scene, take, etc., of a film recording) using a slate (noun etymology 1, noun sense 2.3.1).
  6. To scrape (an animal hide) with a slater (“blade originally made of slate”) to remove hairs.
  7. To cover a building, or part of a building with slates (noun etymology 1, noun sense 1.1).

Etymology

The noun is derived from Middle English sclate, slat, slate (“type of rock; roofing slate; writing slate”), from Old French esclate, a feminine form of esclat (“broken piece, shard”) (modern French éclat), from Old French esclater (“to break, shatter”), from Frankish *slaitijan (“to split, break”), from Proto-Germanic *slaitijaną, the causative of *slītaną (“to cut up, split”); further etymology…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.