SLIDE

I. verb (slid; sliding) Etymology: Middle English, from Old English slīdan; akin to Middle High German slīten to ~ Date: before 12th century intransitive verb 1. to move smoothly along a surface ; slip , to coast over snow or ice, to fall or dive feetfirst or headfirst when approaching a base, 2. to slip or fall by loss of footing, to change position or become dislocated ; shift , 3. to slither along the ground ; crawl , to stream along ; flow , 4. to move or pass smoothly or easily , to pass unnoticed or unremarked , 5. to pass unobtrusively ; steal , to pass by gradations especially downward , transitive verb 1. to cause to glide or slip, to traverse in a sliding manner, to put unobtrusively or stealthily , II. noun Date: 1570 1. an act or instance of sliding, b. a musical grace of two or more small notes, portamento , a sliding part or mechanism: as, a. a U-shaped section of tube in the trombone that is pushed out and in to produce the tones between the fundamental and its harmonics, a short U-shaped section of tube in a brass instrument that is used to adjust the pitch of the instrument or of individual valves, b. a moving piece (as the ram of a punch press) that is guided by a part along which it ~s, a guiding surface (as a feeding mechanism) along which something ~s, sliding seat , 3. the descent of a mass of earth, rock, or snow down a hill or mountainside, a dislocation in which one rock mass in a mining lode has slid on another ; fault , 4. a. a slippery surface for coasting, a chute with a slippery bed down which children ~ in play, a channel or track on which something is slid, a sloping trough down which objects are carried by gravity , 5. a flat piece of glass or plastic on which an object is mounted for microscopic examination, a photographic transparency on a small plate or film mounted for projection, bottleneck 3