Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Composed of or resembling slate.
  • adjective Having the color of slate.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Resembling slate; having the nature or properties of slate: as, a slaty color or texture; a slaty feel.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Resembling slate; having the nature, appearance, or properties, of slate; composed of thin parallel plates, capable of being separated by splitting.
  • adjective (Min.) cleavage, as of rocks, into thin leaves or plates, like those of slate; -- applied especially to those cases in which the planes of cleavage are not parallel to the planes of stratification. It is now believed to be caused by the compression which the strata have undergone.
  • adjective (Min.) a variety of gneiss in which the scales of mica or crystals of hornblende, which are usually minute, form thin laminæ, rendering the rock easily cleavable.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Resembling the mineral slate.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of the color of slate or granite

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From slate +‎ -y.

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