Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A pencil of soft slate, or like material, used for writing or figuring on framed pieces of slate.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word slate-pencil.

Examples

  • When we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like a large drawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil expended on the churches and houses where the snow lay thickest.

    The Holly-Tree 2007

  • When we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like a large drawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil expended on the churches and houses where the snow lay thickest.

    The Holly-Tree 2007

  • The nut-crackers played at leap-frog, and the slate-pencil ran about the slate; there was such a noise that the canary woke up and began to talk to them, in poetry too!

    The Yellow Fairy Book 2003

  • The incense sickened her and a stray, ragged note from one of the tenors in the choir grated on her ear like the shriek of a slate-pencil.

    Flappers and Philosophers 2003

  • A fine, long, new slate-pencil grandly encased for half its length in gold paper.

    Americans All Stories of American Life of To-Day Various

  • The fine, new, long slate-pencil encased in gold paper.

    Americans All Stories of American Life of To-Day Various

  • It was torture to me to have to listen to the grating of a slate-pencil, the filing of a saw, or the scratching of glass.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 Various

  • The exercises of the conspirators varied from day to day, but consisted mainly of foot-scraping, solos on the slate-pencil, (making it _screech_ on the slate,) falling of heavy books, attacks of coughing, banging of desk-lids, boot-creaking, with sounds as of drawing a cork from time to time, followed by suppressed chuckles.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 28, February, 1860 Various

  • Foresters chew this tenacious morsel as tars nibble at a bit of oakum, grooms at a straw, Southerns at tobacco, or school-girls at a slate-pencil.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 59, September, 1862 Various

  • The incense sickened her and a stray, ragged note from one of the tenors in the choir grated on her ear like the shriek of a slate-pencil.

    Flappers and Philosophers 1918

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.