chiefly North American a forked stick, to which an elastic strap (or a pair of elastic bands connected by a small sling) is fastened to the two prongs, typically used for shooting small stones.
[often as modifier] the effect of the gravitational pull of a celestial body in accelerating and changing the course of another body or a spacecraft.
verb (slingshots, slingshotting; past and past participle slingshot or slingshotted)
forcefully accelerate or cause to accelerate through use of gravity: [no object]:the car would hit the first dip, then slingshot off the second rise [with object]:Jupiter’s gravity slingshots the fragments toward Earth
