different between slash vs mince

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /sla?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /slæ?/
• Hyphenation: slash
• Rhymes: -æ?

Etymology 1

Originally a verb of uncertain etymology. Possibly from French esclachier (“to break”). Used once in the Wycliffe Bible as slascht but otherwise unattested until 16th century. Conjunctive use from various applications of the punctuation mark ?/?. See also slash fiction.

Noun

slash (plural slashes)

1. A slashing action or motion, particularly:
   1. A swift, broad, cutting stroke made by an edged weapon or whip.

   2. (cricket) A wild swinging strike of the bat.
   3. (ice hockey, lacrosse) A hard swift lateral strike with a hockey or lacrosse stick, usually across another player's arms or legs.
   4. Any similar wide striking motion.

   5. (figuratively) A sharp reduction.

2. A mark made by a slashing motion, particularly:
   1. A cut or laceration, often deep, made by an edged weapon or whip.

   2. (botany) A deep taper-pointed incision in a plant.
3. Something resembling such a mark, particularly:
   1. (fashion) A slit in an outer garment exposing a lining or inner garment, usually of a contrasting color or design; any intentional long vertical cut in a garment.
   2. (US and Canada) A clearing in a forest, (particularly) those made by logging, fire, or other violent action.
      • 1895, Henry Van Dyke, Little Rivers: A Book of Essays in Profitable Idleness

        We passed over the shoulder of a ridge and around the edge of a fire slash, and then we had the mountain fairly before us.

   3. (originally US, typography) The slash mark: the punctuation mark ?/?, sometimes (often proscribed) inclusive of any mark produced by a similar slashing movement of the pen, as the backslash ?\?.
      • 1965, Dmitri A. Borgmann, Language on Vacation, page 240:

        Initial inquiries among professional typists uncover names like slant, slant line, slash, and slash mark. Examination of typing instruction manuals discloses additional names such as diagonal and diagonal mark, and other sources provide the designation oblique.

   4. (vulgar, slang) Female genitalia.
4. (US and Canada) The loose woody debris remaining from a slash, (particularly forestry) the trimmings left while preparing felled trees for removal.

5. (fandom slang) Slash fiction.
   • 2013, Katherine Arcement, "Diary", London Review of Books, vol. 35, no. 5:

     Comments merely allow readers to proclaim themselves mortally offended by the content of a story, despite having been warned in large block letters of INCEST or SLASH (any kind of sex between two men or two women: the term originated with the Kirk/Spock pairing – it described the literal slash between their names).

Synonyms

• (deep cut): gash
• (typographic mark): slash mark; solidus (formal name); stroke (chiefly UK); forward slash, forward stroke, foreslash, frontslash, front slash (sometimes proscribed); virgule (marking line breaks); shilling mark (UK, historical currency sign); slants, slant lines (marking pronunciations); separatrix (proofreading mark); scratch comma (former use as a form of comma); oblique, oblique mark, oblique stroke, oblique dash (chiefly UK, dated); diagonal, diagonal mark (dated); virgula (obsolete); virgil (UK, obsolete); whack (improper); bar (improper, obsolete)
• (vulgar term for female genitalia): See cunt

Antonyms

• backslash

Hypernyms

• (typographic mark): fraction bar (in fractions); division sign (in division)

Hyponyms

• division slash
• fraction slash

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

Punctuation

Verb

slash (third-person singular simple present slashes, present participle slashing, simple past and past participle slashed)

1. To cut or attempt to cut, particularly:
   1. To cut with a swift broad stroke of an edged weapon.

   2. To produce a similar wound with a savage strike of a whip.
   3. (ice hockey) To strike swiftly and laterally with a hockey stick, usually across another player's arms or legs.
   4. (figuratively) To reduce sharply.

   5. (fashion) To create slashes in a garment.
   6. (figuratively) To criticize cuttingly.
2. To strike violently and randomly, particularly:
   1. (cricket) To swing wildly at the ball.
3. To move quickly and violently.
4. To crack a whip with a slashing motion.
5. (US, Canada) To clear land, (particularly forestry) with violent action such as logging or brushfires or (agriculture, uncommon) through grazing.

6. (intransitive, fandom slang) To write slash fiction.

Synonyms

• (to strike with a whip): lash, scourge, thrash
• (to strike a whip): crack

Derived terms

Coordinate terms

• (slash fiction): ship

Translations

Adverb

slash (not comparable)

1. Used to note the sound or action of a slash.

Conjunction

slash

1. (US and Canada) Used to connect two or more identities in a list.
   • 2001, Fabio Lanzoni, Zoolander:

     What this, the Slashie, means is that you consider me the best actor slash model and not the other way around.

2. (US and Canada) Used to list alternatives.

   Alternatives can be marked by the slash/stroke/solidus punctuation mark, a tall, right-slanting oblique line.

   Read: Alternatives can be marked by the slash-slash-stroke-slash-solidus punctuation mark, a tall, right-slanting oblique line.

Usage notes

Typically written with the slash mark ?/? and only spoken or transcribed as slash. Often omitted from speech and only marked as a brief pause between the alternatives. Exclusively omitted in common constructions such as and/or, either/or, and washer/dryer.

Synonyms

• (exclusive or): or
• (inclusive or): and, or, and/or
• (UK): stroke

Further reading

• slash on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Etymology 2

Of uncertain etymology. Compare Scots slash (“large splash”), possibly from Old French esclache. Slang use for urination attested from the 1950s.

Noun

slash (plural slashes)

1. (obsolete, rare) A drink of something; a draft.
2. (vulgar, Britain, slang) A piss: an act of urination.

   Where's the gents? I need to take a slash.

Verb

slash (third-person singular simple present slashes, present participle slashing, simple past and past participle slashed)

1. (Britain, slang, intransitive) To piss, to urinate.
   • 1973, Martin Amis, The Rachel Papers, page 189:

     If you can slash in my bed (I thought) don't tell me you can't suck my cock.

Translations

Etymology 3

Of uncertain etymology. Compare flash (“a marsh; a pool of water”) and British dialectal slashy (“wet and dirty, miry”).

Noun

slash (plural slashes)

1. (US) A swampy area; a swamp.
2. (Scotland) A large quantity of watery food such as broth.

Verb

slash (third-person singular simple present slashes, present participle slashing, simple past and past participle slashed)

1. (Scotland, intransitive) To work in wet conditions.

Etymology 4

See slatch

Noun

slash (plural slashes)

1. (Britain) Alternative form of slatch: a deep trough of finely-fractured culm or a circular or elliptical pocket of coal.

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. "slash, v.¹ & v.²" & "slash, n.¹, n.², n.³, & n.?". Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1911.

Anagrams

• LSSAH

Spanish

Noun

slash m (plural slash)

1. (punctuation) slash

English

Alternative forms

• minse (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English mincen, minsen; partly from Old English minsian, ?eminsian (“to make less, make smaller, diminish”), from Proto-Germanic *minnis?n? (“to make less”); partly from Old French mincer, mincier (“to cut into small pieces”), from mince (“slender, slight, puny”), from Frankish *minsto, *minnisto, superlative of *min, *minn (“small, less”), from Proto-Germanic *minniz (“less”); both from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“small, little”). Cognate with Old Saxon mins?n (“to make less, make smaller”), Gothic ???????????????????????????? (minznan, “to become less, diminish”), Swedish minska (“to reduce, lessen”), Gothic ???????????????? (mins, “slender, slight”). More at min.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /m?ns/
• Rhymes: -?ns
• Homophone: mints

Noun

mince (countable and uncountable, plural minces)

1. (uncountable) Finely chopped meat.

   Mince tastes really good fried in a pan with some chopped onion and tomato.

2. (uncountable) Finely chopped mixed fruit used in Christmas pies; mincemeat.

   During Christmas time my dad loves to eat mince pies.

3. (countable) An affected (often dainty or short and precise) gait.
   • 2010, Tom Zoellner, Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World:

     His skin was china pale, he walked with a slight mince, and his silver mustache was always trimmed sharp; it was his custom to send a bouquet of pink carnations to the wives of men with whom he dined.

4. (countable) An affected manner, especially of speaking; an affectation.
   • 1928, R. M. Pope, in The Education Outlook, volume 80, page 285:

     And, further, who has not heard what someone has christened the "Oxford" mince, where every consonant is mispronounced and every vowel gets a wrong value?

   • 2008, Opie Read, The Colossus, page 95:

     [...] a smiling man, portly and impressive, coming toward them with a dignified mince in his walk.

5. (countable, Cockney rhyming slang, chiefly in the plural) An eye (from mince pie).

Quotations

• 1849, Herman Melville, Mardi, and a Voyage Thither:

  Not, — let me hurry to say, — that I put hand in tar bucket with a squeamish air, or ascended the rigging with a Chesterfieldian mince.

Translations

Verb

mince (third-person singular simple present minces, present participle mincing, simple past and past participle minced)

1. (transitive) To make less; make small.
2. (transitive) To lessen; diminish; to diminish in speaking; speak of lightly or slightingly; minimise.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:diminish

3. (transitive, rare) To effect mincingly.
4. (transitive, cooking) To cut into very small pieces; to chop fine.

5. (archaic, transitive, figuratively) To suppress or weaken the force of

   Synonyms: extenuate, palliate, weaken

   • 1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Friar, or the Double Discovery

     Siren, now mince the sin, / And mollify damnation with a phrase.

6. To say or utter vaguely, not directly or frankly

7. (transitive) To affect; to pronounce affectedly or with an accent.
   • 1869, Alexander J. Ellis, On Early English Pronunciation, with special reference to Shakespeare and Chaucer, part 1, page 194:

     In some districts of England ll is sounded like w, thus bowd (booud) for BOLD, bw (buu) for BULL, caw (kau) for CALL. But this pronunciation is merely a provincialism, and not to be imitated unless you wish to mince like these blunderers.

   • 1905, George Henderson, The Gaelic Dialects, IV, in the Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, published by Kuno Meyer and L. Chr. Stern, volume 5, page 98:

     One may hear some speakers in Oxford mince brother into brover (brëvë); Bath into Baf; both into bof.
8. (intransitive) To walk with short steps; to walk in a prim, affected manner.

   • At the last moment Mollie, the foolish, pretty white mare who drew Mr. Jones's trap, came mincing daintily in, chewing at a lump of sugar.

   • 1769, King James Bible, Isaiah 3:16

     The daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, mincing as they go.
9. (intransitive) To act or talk with affected nicety; to affect delicacy in manner.

Usage notes

Current usage in the sense of “say or utter vaguely” is mostly limited to the phrase “mince words”; e.g., “I won't mince words with you”.

Derived terms

Translations

References

• mince in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Czech

Etymology

Borrowed from German Münze.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?m?nt?s?/
• Rhymes: -?nts?

Noun

mince f

1. coin

   Synonyms: peníz, moneta

   Hyponyms: m??ák, st?íbr?ák, zla?ák

Declension

Related terms

Further reading

• mince in P?íru?ní slovník jazyka ?eského, 1935–1957
• mince in Slovník spisovného jazyka ?eského, 1960–1971, 1989

French

Etymology

Derived from the verb mincer, from Old French mincier, from Vulgar Latin *min?ti?re (cf. also menuiser), from Latin min?tia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /m??s/

Adjective

mince (plural minces)

1. thin, slim, slender

Derived terms

• amincir
• minceur
• mincir

Interjection

mince

1. drat!, darn!
2. wow!, blimey!

Further reading

• “mince” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Irish

Noun

mince f

1. genitive singular of minc (“mink”)

Mutation

Slovak

Noun

mince

1. inflection of minca:
   1. genitive singular
   2. nominative/accusative plural