Meaning

noun a thin strip (wood or metal)

verb equip or bar with slats

verb close the slats of (windows)

originFrom Middle English slatte, sklatte, sklat, sclat, from Old French esclat (“piece broken or split off, shiver, splinter”), from Old French esclater (“to split, burst”), from Frankish *slaitijan (“to split, break”), from Proto-Germanic *slītaną (“to rend, split”). Doublet of slate and éclat.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0