slopes

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of slope.

   Skiers carved fresh tracks down the snowy slopes all morning.

   Vineyards covered the sunny slopes above the river.

   Note

   The plural belongs to the countable uses of slope: stretches of hillside, and, in mathematics, the slopes of several lines, each a ratio of vertical rise to horizontal run. Where slope works as a mass noun for how much a surface tilts, there is no plural. The same spelling also serves an offensive ethnic slur for people of East Asian descent, so the context should leave no doubt that ground or gradients are meant.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of slope.

   The garden slopes away from the house toward a small pond.

   The beach slopes steeply just past the waterline.

   Note

   One spelling covers several verbs. Most often it is intransitive and describes how ground lies: a lawn slopes toward the road. It can also take an object, as when a carpenter slopes a shelf so water runs off. In colloquial British speech it means moving off unnoticed, as when someone slopes out of a meeting early. On the parade ground, a soldier slopes a rifle onto the shoulder.

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