slew (root: slay)

• POS: Noun, Verb (usu participle)

CIDE DICTIONARY

slew, imp. 

 imp. of Slay.  [1913 Webster]

slew, v. t. 

 See Slue.  [1913 Webster]

slew, n. [See Slough a wet place.].

 A wet place; a river inlet.
"The praire round about is wet, at times almost marshy, especially at the borders of the great reedy slews."  [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

slew, v. & n. (also slue)
--v.tr. & intr. (often foll. by round) turn or swing forcibly or with effort out of the forward or ordinary position.
--n. such a change of position.

slew, past of SLAY(1).

slew, n. esp. US colloq. a large number or quantity.

Etymology

Ir. sluagh

THESAURUS

slew

batch, bunch, clump, cluster, considerable, copse, crop, deal, gobs, good deal, great deal, group, grouping, groupment, grove, hassock, heap, heaps, jillion, knot, lashings, loads, lot, lots, mess, million, mint, oodles, pack, peck, pile, piles, pot, quantities, quite a little, raft, rafts, scads, shock, sight, slews, spate, stack, stacks, stook, thicket, thousand, tidy sum, trillion, tuft, tussock, wad, wads, whole slew, wisp