different between slab vs storey

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /slæb/
• Rhymes: -æb

Etymology 1

From Middle English sclabbe, slabbe, of uncertain origin; possibly from *slap, related to dialectal slappel (“portion, piece”), along with slape (“slippery”), sleip (“smooth piece of timber”), borrowed through Old Norse sleipr from Proto-Germanic *slaipaz, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)leyb-. See also Norwegian sleip (“slippery”) and Icelandic sleipur.

Noun

slab (plural slabs)

1. A large, flat piece of solid material; a solid object that is large and flat.
   • 1859, John Lang, Botany Bay, or, True Tales of Early Australia, page 155,

     There were no windows in the inn. They were not required, since the interstices between the slabs suffered the wind, the rain, and the light of day to penetrate simultaneously.

   • 1913, Jack London, John Barleycorn, 2008, page 14,

     Then there was the Mexican who sold big slabs of chewing taffy for five cents each.

   • 2010, Ryan Humphreys, The Flirtations of Dan Harris, page 73,

     “The pier? You mean those few sodden logs tied together and that dingy slab of rough concrete.”

2. A paving stone; a flagstone.
3. (Australia) A carton containing 24 cans of beer.
   • 2001, Les Carlyon, Gallipoli, page 8,

     The Australians murder a few slabs of beer and the New Zealanders murder a few vowels.

   • 2008, Diem Vo, Family Life, Alice Pung (editor), page 156,

     However, unlike in Ramsay Street, there were never any cups of tea or bickies served. Instead, each family unit came armed with a slab of beer.

   • 2010, Holly Smith, Perth, Western Australia & the Outback, Hunter Publishing, unnumbered page,

     Common 375-ml cans are called tinnies, and can be bought in 24-can slabs for discounted prices.

   • 2009, Ross Fitzgerald, Trevor Jordan, Under the Influence: A History of Alcohol in Australia, 2011, unnumbered page,

     One essential part of the strategy for selling regionally identified beers beyond their borders was the selling of slabs — a package of four six-packs of stubbies or cans — for discounted prices interstate.

4. An outside piece taken from a log or timber when sawing it into boards, planks, etc.
5. A bird, the wryneck.
6. (nautical) The slack part of a sail.
7. (US, slang) A large, luxury pre-1980 General Motors vehicle, particularly a Buick, Oldsmobile, or Cadillac.
8. (surfing) A very large wave.
   • 2009, Bruce Boal, The Surfing Yearbook, SurfersVillage, page 31,

     After being towed into a massive slab, Dorian dropped down the face and caught a rail, putting him in a near-impossible situation.

   • 2011, Douglas Booth, Surfing: The Ultimate Guide, page 95,

     In August 2000 he successfully rode a slab of unfathomable power at Teahupo?o.

9. (computing) A sequence of 12 adjacent bits, serving as a byte in some computers.
10. (computing) The amount by which a cache can grow or shrink, used in memory allocation.
11. (geology) Part of a tectonic plate that is being subducted.
    • 2015, Dapeng Zhao, Multiscale Seismic Tomography, Springer, page 72,

      Being driven by the gravitational force, the subducting Pacific slab continues to sink down to the boundary between the upper and lower mantle...

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

slab (third-person singular simple present slabs, present participle slabbing, simple past and past participle slabbed)

1. (transitive) To make something into a slab.

Etymology 2

Compare Goidelic and Irish slaib (“mud, mire left on a river strand”), and English slop (“puddle”).

Noun

slab (plural slabs)

1. (archaic) Mud, sludge.
   • 1664, John Evelyn, Sylva, Or A Discourse of Forest Trees, Volume 1,

     Some do also plant oziers in their eights, like quick-sets, thick, and (near the water) keep them not more than half a foot above ground; but then they must be diligently cleansed from moss, slab, and ouze, and frequently prun'd (especially the smaller spires) to form single shoots; […] .

Derived terms

• slabby

Adjective

slab (comparative more slab, superlative most slab)

1. (archaic) Thick; viscous.
   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1,^[2]

     Make the gruel thick and slab:

Etymology 3

Acronym of Slow, Loud And Bangin'. This term been popularized through the southern rap genre of hip-hop, most notably by rappers such as Paul Wall, Chamillionaire, Lil' Keke, and others.

Noun

slab (plural slabs)

1. (Southern US, slang) A car that has been modified with equipment such as loudspeakers, lights, special paint, hydraulics, and other accessories.
   • 2005, Chamillionaire (featuring Krayzie Bone), "Ridin'", The Sound of Revenge:

     Pull me over, try to check my slab

   • 2006, Trae (featuring Pimp C and Big Hawk), "Swang", Restless:

     I'mma swang, I'mma swing my slab lean to the left

   • 2012, Bobby Austin, By All Mean$, AuthorHouse (2012), ?ISBN, page 56:

     All three of them recognized who the Lexus'^[sic] belonged to so he parked his slab and they cocked their guns.

References

• slab in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• B.L.A.S., BALs, BASL, BLAs, LABs, Labs, albs, labs

Aromanian

Alternative forms

• slabu

Etymology

From a Slavic language, ultimately from Proto-Slavic *slàb?. Compare Romanian slab, Bulgarian and Macedonian ???? (slab), Serbo-Croatian sl?b.

Adjective

slab m (feminine slabã, masculine plural slaghi, feminine plural slabi or slabe)

1. weak
2. lean, thin, skinny
3. bad, wicked, evil

Synonyms

• (bad): arãu

Antonyms

• (weak): vãrtos, cadãr, putut, ndrumin, silnãos
• (thin, lean): gras
• (bad): bun

Derived terms

• slãbintsã
• slãbushcu

Related terms

• slãghescu

Noun

slab m

1. evil

Synonyms

• arãu, rãu

Derived terms

• slabã

Dutch

Pronunciation

Noun

slab f (plural slabben, diminutive slabbetje n)

1. (also very common in the diminutive) bib

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English slab

Noun

slab m (invariable)

1. slab (of metal to be worked)

   Synonym: bramma

Romanian

Etymology

From Slavic, from Proto-Slavic *slàb?. Compare Aromanian slab, Bulgarian and Macedonian ???? (slab), Serbo-Croatian sl?b.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [slab]

Adjective

slab m or n (feminine singular slab?, masculine plural slabi, feminine and neuter plural slabe)

1. weak
2. thin, skinny

Declension

Antonyms

• (weak): puternic
• (thin): gras

Related terms

See also

• sub?ire

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *slàb?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /slâb/

Adjective

sl?b (definite sl?b?, comparative slabiji, Cyrillic spelling ?????)

1. weak

Declension

Slovene

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *slàb?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sláp/

Adjective

sl?b (comparative sl?bši, superlative n?jsl?bši)

1. bad (not good)
2. weak

Inflection

This adjective needs an inflection-table template.

Derived terms

• presl?b

Further reading

• “slab”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU, portal Fran

English

Alternative forms

• story (US)

Etymology

From Middle English story, via Medieval Latin historia (“narrative, illustraton, frieze”) from Ancient Greek ??????? (historí?, “learning through research”), from ??????? (historé?, “to research, inquire (and record)”), from ????? (híst?r, “the knowing, wise one”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to see, know”). The current sense arose from narrative friezes on upper levels of medieval buildings, esp. churches.

An alternative etymology derives Middle English story from Old French *estoree (“a thing built, building”), from estoree (“built”), feminine past participle of estorer (“to build”), from Latin instaurare (“to construct, build, erect”), but this seems unlikely since historia already had the meaning "storey of a building" in Anglo-Latin.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?st????/, /?st???i/
• Rhymes: -??ri
• Homophone: story

Noun

storey (plural storeys)

1. (obsolete) A building; an edifice.
2. (Britain) A floor or level of a building or ship.

   Synonyms: floor, level, (US) story

   Coordinate term: deck

3. (typography) A vertical level in certain letters, such as a and g.

Usage notes

The terms floor, level, or deck are used in a similar way, except that it is usual to talk of a “14-storey building”, but “the 14th floor”. The floor at ground or street level is called the ground floor in many places. The words storey and floor exclude levels of the building that are not covered by a roof, such as the terrace on the top roof of many buildings.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• storey on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Storey in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• Oyster, Troyes, oyster, oystre, toyers, tyroes