slart meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

slart

noun

Etymology Unclear.

England, US, Dialectal Leftover(s), especially of food.

In the phrase "orts and slarts"

[…] they must be able to measure any earth—any inch-space of the heart whatever—else they are mere orts and slarts.1892 [????], The Sewanee Review, volume 63, page 396:
MINNIE: […] You kept the solid meal, and the orts and slarts any other woman could have. But I tell you, I'm not for having the orts and slarts,* and your leavings […] I'll have a man, or nothing, I will. […] MINNIE: Yes! What did you care about the woman who would have to take your sons after you? Nothing! You left her with just the slarts of a man. […] *the leftovers of a meal, often subsequently served up cold2001 [1913?], David Herbert Lawrence, The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd and Other Plays, →ISBN, page 148,277:

4 more examples

In 1700 Swift was hectically cramming his Tub with the orts and slarts of discursivities then à la mode ranging from West-End chic to the hullabaloo of bullies, beggars, and doxies that he had agglomerated "from the Books, Pamphlets, and single Papers, offered us every Day in the Coffee-houses."2003, Hermann Josef Real, Helgard Stöver-Leidig, Reading Swift: Papers from the Fourth Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift, volume 4, Brill Fink, page 179:
Existenz, seems to me such a pot au fen of all the others, such a soup of the orts of the past and the future, of the slarts of the mediocre events and despairs of the present, that I do not have much appetite for it.2003, Minutes of the Charles Olson Society, numbers 49-61, page 18:
In focusing on what (to borrow a phrase from D. H. Lawrence) we call the 'orts and slarts' of various song traditions, we want to break the persistent habit of looking at such pieces from the centre outwards, from the full or 'complete' narrative to the 'broken' edges—a habit which, long since[…]2003 August 7, Mary-Ann Constantine, Gerald Porter, Fragments and Meaning in Traditional Song: From the Blues to the Baltic, Liverpool University Press, →ISBN:
CHAPTER. 20. SLARTS! Well, would you look at that? I still have some slarts left in my linguistic grab bag.2025, Martha Barnette, Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland:

verb

Etymology Unclear.

England, Dialectal, Uncommon To splash or splatter, especially with something dirty.

Luke at that dolly! — slarting t' barns wi' t' dish-clart, astead o' gehring wesh'd up,[…]1862, C. Clough Robinson, The Dialect of Leeds and Its Neighbourhood: Illustrated by Conversations and Tales of Common Life, Etc. To which are Added a Copious Glossary; Notices of the Various Antiquities, Manners, and Customs, and General Folk-lore of the District, page 411:
Wheer t'much [muck] slarts daan t'winders / We've all on us coil up / We're agait naah wi't cinders / And if t'bum bailiff cums lads / E'll nivver find us / Cos we're right daan in t'coil oil / Wheer t'much slarts daan t'winders. Bob Schofield, Francis, Day & Hunter […]1997, English Dance and Song, volumes 59-60, page 19:

1 more example

[…] on his throne the slarting / Thunderer turns, / Melts with soft sighs, with kindling rapture burns; / Clasps her fair hand, and eyes in fond amaze / The bright Intruder with enamour'd gaze. / "And leaves my Goddess, like a blooming bride,[…]"2025 August 18, Erasmus Darwin, The Botanic Garden; A Poem in Two Parts, The Economy of Vegetation and The Loves of the Plants: Volume 1 - in large print, BoD – Books on Demand, →ISBN, page 162: