I. ˈslit, usu -id.+V transitive verb
( slit ; slit ; slitting ; slits )
Etymology: Middle English slitten; akin to Middle High German slitzen to slip; akin to Old English slītan to tear apart, Old High German slīzan, Old Norse slīta, Lithuanian skélti to split — more at shell
1.
a. : to make a slit in : cut lengthwise : slash
slit the huge envelope clumsily with the paper knife — Lawrence Durrell
his two motorboats slit the waters of the sound — Scott Fitzgerald
b. : to cut off or away : sever
be his tongue slit for his insolence — P.B.Shelley
2. : to cut (as film or paper) into long narrow strips
Synonyms: see cut
II. noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English slitte, from slitten to slit
: a long narrow cut or opening
a slit in the jacket
the window was no more than a slit in the wall
as
a. : a narrow opening in a dome or in the roof and sidewalls of an observing room through which a telescope is pointed at the celestial bodies
b. : a narrow usually rectangular opening through which light or other emission is admitted (as to the collimator of a spectroscope) or through which it escapes (as from a black-body cavity)
c. : an aperture in the optical system of photographic sound recorders and reproducers that limits the height of the scanned area to less than a wavelength of the shortest wavelength signal to be recorded or reproduced
III. adjective
1. : shaped like a slit : long and narrow
fat-padded slit eyes — Weston La Barre
2. : having a slit
a slit skirt
slit limpet
3. : produced through a wide shallow opening formed at the free end of the tongue
a slit fricative such as th
— compare groove
IV. transitive verb
( slitted ; slitted ; slitting ; slits )
: to form into a slit : narrow
morning sunlight flooded in upon him, and he slitted his eyes against the glare — J.R.Ullman