slew
2 of 4past tense of slay
slew
4 of 4less common spelling of slough entry 1 sense 1b
Did you know?
Slew appeared as an American colloquialism in the early 19th century. Its origins are unclear, but it is perhaps taken from the Irish slua, a descendant of Old Irish slúag, meaning "army," "host," or "throng." Slew has several homographs (words that are spelled alike but different in meaning, derivation, or pronunciation) in English. These include: slew as the past tense of the verb slay; slew as a spelling variant of slough, a word which is also commonly pronounced \SLOO\ and which means "swamp," "an inlet on a river," or "a creek in a marsh or tide flat"; and the verb slew, meaning "to turn, veer, or skid."
Synonyms
Noun
- abundance
- barrel
- basketful
- boatload
- bucket
- bunch
- bundle
- bushel
- carload
- chunk
- deal
- dozen
- fistful
- gobs
- good deal
- heap
- hundred
- lashings [chiefly British]
- lashins
- loads
- lot
- mass
- mess
- mountain
- much
- multiplicity
- myriad
- oodles
- pack
- passel
- peck
- pile
- plateful
- plenitude
- plentitude
- plenty
- pot
- potful
- profusion
- quantity
- raft
- reams
- scads
- sheaf
- shipload
- sight
- spate
- stack
- store
- ton
- truckload
- volume
- wad
- wealth
- yard
Examples of slew in a Sentence
Reade Pickert, Fortune, 27 Apr. 2024
He's being released with a slew of stipulations, including being prohibited from leaving the archipelago nation.
—Amaris Encinas, USA TODAY, 27 Apr. 2024
Latest in a slew of right position/wrong guy for me.
—Greg Cote, Miami Herald, 26 Apr. 2024
Swift’s 11th studio album has already set a slew of records, including a new, global streaming mark on Spotify, blasting away with more than 300 million streams in a single day, and shifting 700,000 copies on vinyl in its first week on sale in the United States.
—Lars Brandle, Billboard, 25 Apr. 2024
The deal struck in Raymore appeared to ease concerns from a slew of Missouri senators who had spent the past two sessions blocking the legislation from coming to a vote.
—Kacen Bayless, Kansas City Star, 23 Apr. 2024
Meta just announced a slew of new updates for its Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.
—Victoria Song, The Verge, 23 Apr. 2024
The heat wave also ratcheted up fire danger, breaking a slew of fire weather records over a broad area and helping to stoke blazes in British Columbia, California, Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Montana.
—Alex Wigglesworth, Los Angeles Times, 22 Apr. 2024
On April 18, the Sister Wives star was honored with a slew of social media shoutouts on her special day.
—Esther Kang, Peoplemag, 19 Apr. 2024
Ezra Dyer, Car and Driver, 27 Aug. 2023
Much of bonds’ gains came in the 1980s, when the Fed under Paul Volcker eased off its punishingly high interest rates, which slew that era’s double-digit inflation.
—Larry Light, Fortune, 13 Oct. 2022
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'slew.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Articles Related to slew
Dictionary Entries Near slew
Cite this Entry
“Slew.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slew. Accessed 1 May. 2024.
Copy Citation
Share