slart

Unclear.

slart (plural slarts)

1. (England and US dialectal, chiefly in the phrase "orts and slarts") Leftover(s), especially of food.
   • 1892 [????], The Sewanee Review, volume 63, page 396:

     […] they must be able to measure any earth—any inch-space of the heart whatever—else they are mere orts and slarts.

   • 2001 [1913?], David Herbert Lawrence, The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd and Other Plays, →ISBN, page 148,277:

     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 cold

   • 2003, Hermann Josef Real, Helgard Stöver-Leidig, Reading Swift: Papers from the Fourth Münster Symposium on Jonathan Swift, volume 4, Brill Fink, page 179:

     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, Minutes of the Charles Olson Society, numbers 49-61, page 18:

     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 August 7, Mary-Ann Constantine, Gerald Porter, Fragments and Meaning in Traditional Song: From the Blues to the Baltic, Liverpool University Press, →ISBN:

     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 […]

   • 2025, Martha Barnette, Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland:

     CHAPTER. 20. SLARTS! Well, would you look at that? I still have some slarts left in my linguistic grab bag.

• orts
• manavelins

slart (third-person singular simple present slarts, present participle slarting, simple past and past participle slarted)

1. (uncommon, England dialectal) To splash or splatter, especially with something dirty.
   • 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:

     Luke at that dolly! — slarting t' barns wi' t' dish-clart, astead o' gehring wesh'd up, […]

   • 1997, English Dance and Song, volumes 59-60, page 19:

     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 […]

   • 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:

     […] 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, […]"

• Joseph Wright, editor (1905), “SLART”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume V (R–S), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC.:

  "v. and sb. Yks. Der. Lin. Hrf. Amer. Also written slaat, slaght, slaht w.Yks.; and in form slort Der. [slāt.]

  1. v. To splash; to sprinkle with water, dirt, &c.; to stain, make dirty. w.Yks. Mi cloase wor all slaghted wi muck, Tom Treddlehoyle Bairnsla Ann. (1847) 51; w.Yks.1 w.Yks.2 w.Yks.3 w.Yks.4; w.Yks.5 Luke at that dolly! — slarting t'barns wi' t'dish-clart, astēad o' gehring wesh'd up. Der. Addy Gl. (1888). Hrf. Bound Provinc. (1876); Hrf.1 Hence (1) Slarting-cart, sb. a watering-cart; (2) Slarty, adj. very sticky. (1) w.Yks. (S.K.C.); (B.W.) (2) [Amer. Dial. Notes (1896) I. 394.]

  . Fig. To taunt, insinuate. Lin. If you've anything to say, out with it and don't slart in that way (Hall.). sw.Lin.1 Out with it, don't slart.

  3. sb. A splash of rain or mud; a sprinkling. w.Yks. Ye weean't need a dictionary to tell ye what slaht means; wimmin wi' new frocks on don't like slahts, Yksman. Comic Ann. (1890) 39, in Leeds Merc. Suppl. (Sept. 4, 1897).

  4. A large quantity of anything. Lin. You've got a pretty good slart of butter this week (Hall.).