slide

To move, or make something move, smoothly along a surface.

• The box slid across the floor.
• Slide the door open, please.
• He slid a note under my door.

How to use it: slide something across/along something (She slid the plate across the table.); slide down something (The children slid down the snowy hill.)

Similar words: glide, slip

Common phrases: slide across something, slide down something, slide something open, slide something across something

To become lower in number, price, value, or amount.

• Oil prices continue to slide.
• The company’s profits slid last year.
• Sales have slid to their lowest level since May.

How to use it: slide to something (Sales slid to their lowest level in years.); slide by something (Share prices slid by five percent.)

Similar words: fall, drop, decline

Opposites: rise, increase

Common phrases: prices slide, slide in value, slide to something

A smooth sloping structure that children sit on and travel down for fun.

• The children played on the slide.
• She climbed the ladder to the slide.
• We tried all the water slides at the pool.

Common phrases: water slide, playground slide, down the slide

A gradual fall in quality, success, value, or condition.

• The team’s downward slide continued.
• New investment helped stop the slide in sales.
• Her debts marked the beginning of a slide into poverty.

How to use it: a slide into something (The country faced a slide into recession.); a slide in something (There was a steady slide in house prices.)

Similar words: decline, fall, drop

Common phrases: downward slide, slide into something, halt the slide

A smooth movement along a surface while staying in contact with it.

• One slide took him across the ice.
• The dancer finished with a sideways slide.
• Her smooth slide across the floor impressed the judges.

Similar words: glide

Common phrases: slide on ice, sideways slide, smooth slide

A photograph on a small transparent sheet, shown on a screen by shining light through it.

• Dad showed us a slide of Rome.
• She loaded the slides into the projector.
• These old colour slides have faded badly.

Similar words: transparency

Common phrases: colour slide, slide projector, photographic slide

A small flat piece of glass that holds a sample for viewing through a microscope.

• Put the sample on a slide.
• She examined the cells on the glass slide.
• The lab prepared several slides from the tissue sample.

Common phrases: microscope slide, glass slide, slide preparation

A part of a machine or musical instrument that moves smoothly back and forth.

• The trombone’s slide was stuck.
• He cleaned and oiled the slide.
• Moving the slide changes the length of the instrument’s tube.

Common phrases: trombone slide, slide mechanism, lubricate the slide