sling

Infinitive

sling

Past

slung

Past participle

slung

Definition

n. a piece of cloth or a strap used to support something heavy or broken. You might use one to hold a broken arm or to carry a heavy bag over your shoulder.

n. a flexible strap or bandage used to support, carry, or lift a weight. Often refers to a triangular bandage looped around the neck to support an injured arm.

simple

“He had to wear a sling for six weeks after his surgery.”

contextual

“The workers used a heavy-duty nylon sling to lift the engine block out of the car.”

complex

“In medical emergencies, a simple triangular bandage can be fashioned into a temporary sling to immobilise a fractured limb until professional help arrives.”

Commonly used with the verb 'to wear' when referring to medical support.

From Middle English slynge (noun), slyngen (verb), probably from Old Norse slyngja, slyngva (“to hurl”), from Proto-Germanic *slingwaną (“to worm, twist”) or compare Old English slingan (“to wind, twist”), from the same source. Compare German schlingen (“to swing, wind, twist”), Danish and Norwegian slynge), from Proto-Indo-European *slenk- (“to turn, twist”) (compare Welsh llyngyr (“worms, maggots”), Lithuanian sliñkti (“to crawl like a snake”), Latvian slìkt (“to sink”)).

From a shortening of spiderling.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.