▪ I. slote, n.
(sləʊt)
Also 5 sloot, 7 sclote; 8– sloat.
[var. of slot n.1]
† 1. A door-bolt. Obs. = slot n.1 1.
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 460/1 Sloot, or schytyl of sperynge, pessulum. 1515 Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scotl. V. 11 Ane grete slote to monsure Sanct Romanis chalmour. 1614 Churchw. Acc. Pittington, etc. (Surtees) 170 For makinge two holes in stones for the sclotes goinge in our church dore. 1633 Rutherford Lett. (1862) I. 105, I have gotten now..the gate to open the slote and shut the bar of His door. 1721 Ramsay Poems Gloss., Slote, a Bar or Bolt for a Door. |
2. A bar; a cross-bar; also in special senses (see quots. and cf. slot n.1 2).
| α 1485 Fabric Rolls York Minster (Surtees) 87 Les tyers et slotes pro eisdem altaribus, 4l. 17s. 4d. 1523 Fitzherb. Husb. §15 [The] harowe-bulles..haue slotes of wode put through theym lyke lathes,..and the formest slote must be bygger than the other. 1674 Ray N.C. Words 43 The Slote of a ladder or gate, the flat step or bar. 1688 Holme Armoury iii. 339/2 The Slotes are the vnder peeces which keepe the bottom of the Cart together. Ibid. 340/1 The several parts of a Wagon... The Slotes [are] the cross pieces which hold the Shafts together. 1841 Hartshorne Salop. Ant. Gloss., Slote, a kind of bolt for bottoms or sides of wagons, ‘tumbrels’, or harrows. 1879–87 in Shropshire and Cheshire glossaries. |
| β 1704 Dict. Rust. s.v. Cart, The Sloats are the under pieces which keep the bottom of the Cart together. 1750 W. Ellis Mod. Husb. III. v. 78 The Sloats of a Gate or Hurdle. 1853 Wayland Mem. Judson II. 340 The openings in the sloats above the windows. 1858 Simmonds Dict. Trade, Sloat, a piece of wood used as a stretcher, as the bar of a chair, the sloats of a cart. |
3. A trap-door in a theatre stage.
| 1853 Punch XXIV. 128/2 The working of various mysterious engines of machinery, called ‘sloats’ and ‘scruto-pieces’. 1858 in Simmonds Dict. Trade. |
Hence ˈsloted ppl. a., furnished with slots or cross-bars; having (so many) slots.
| 1523 Fitzherb. Husb. §15 The horse-harrowe is made of fyue bulles,..not soo moche as the other, but they be lyke sloted and tinded. 1750 W. Ellis Mod. Husb. IV. iv. 65 (E.D.S.), The open five-sloted hurdle. |
▪ II. slote
var. sluit.