slicing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of slice.

   The chef is slicing onions for the evening stew.

   Slicing the cake into equal portions took a steady hand.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. After be it builds the progressive (is slicing onions), and on its own it heads a gerund phrase that still takes a direct object (slicing the cake). That object is the easiest way to tell it from the noun for the act, which needs of instead: the slicing of the roast. It carries every sense of slice, from slicing a shot to slicing an oar blade into the water.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or process of cutting something into thin, flat pieces.

   The slicing of the roast was done at the table in front of the guests.

   Even slicing demands a sharp blade and a relaxed grip.

   Similarcutting, carving

   Note

   The noun can name individual cuts as well as the ongoing process, so it takes a plural, slicings, that reaches well beyond the kitchen. Holland Cotter, writing in the New York Times in 2009, credits Gordon Matta-Clark with "massive slicings and excisions" through buildings in the 1970s, which were cuts made into architecture itself. In that countable use it sits comfortably beside surgical nouns like excision.

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