skull, a skull-cap, helmet. Beaumont and Fl., Humorous Lieutenant, iv. 4. 5.
skull; see [scull].
skyrgaliard, a wild or dissipated fellow, Skelton, Against the Scottes, 101; id., Speke, Parrot, 427. See [galliard].
slab up, to sup up greedily and dirtily; ‘Ye never saw hungry dog so slab (printed stab) potage up’, Jacob and Esau, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, ii. 215. See NED. (s.v. Slab, vb.2).
slake, a shallow dell, a glade, a pass between hills. Morte Arthur, leaf 95. 6; bk. vi, c. 5. In prov. use in Scotland, Ireland, and in various parts of England, in the north down to Lincoln, see EDD. (s.v. Slack, sb.3 1). Icel. slakki, a small shallow dell.
slam, an ungainly person; ‘He is but a slam’, Vanbrugh, The Relapse, v. 5 (Nurse); ‘A slam or slim Fellow is a skragged, tall, rawboned Fellow’, Ray, N. C. Words (ed. 1691, 137), see NED. (s.v. Slam, adj.).
slampant: in phr. to give one the (or a) slampant, to play a trick on; ‘Polyperchon . . . meaning to give Cassander a slampant . . . sent letters Pattents’, North, Plutarch (ed. 1595, 805); ‘Trousse, a cousening tricke, blurt, slampant’, Cotgrave; also in form slampaine, ‘The townesmen being pinched at the heart that one rascal . . . should give them the slampaine’, Stanyhurst, Desc. of Ireland (ed. 1808, vi. 30); also spelt slampam, ‘Shal a stranger geve me the slampam?’, Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, iv. 633.
slat, to dash, strike violently. Marston, Malcontent, iv. 1 (Malevole). In prov. use in various parts of England, meaning to throw violently, to dash down water or other liquid, also, to strike, beat, see EDD. (s.v. Slat, vb.3 1).
slate, a cant term for a sheet. Middleton, Roaring Girl, v. 1 (Trapdoor); Fletcher, Beggar’s Bush, iii. 3 (Higgen); Harman, Caveat, p. 61.
slaty, muddy, rainy. Skelton, El. Rummyng, 258. ‘Slatty’ is a Warw. word for muddy, see EDD. (s.v. Slat, sb.4 1).