/slaɪm/, /slɑem/, /slaɪm/
OriginFrom Middle English slime, slyme, slim, slym, from Old English slīm, from Proto-West Germanic *slīm, from Proto-Germanic *slīmą, from Proto-Indo-European *sley- (“smooth; slick; sticky; slimy”). Cognates include Saterland Frisian Sliem, Dutch slijm, German Schleim (“mucus, slime”), Danish slim, Faroese slím (“slime”), Latin limus (“mud”), Ancient Greek λίμνη (límnē, “marsh”).
- countable, uncountableSoft, moist earth or clay, having an adhesive quality; viscous mud; any substance of a dirty nature, that is moist, soft, and adhesive; bitumen; mud containing metallic ore, obtained in the preparatory dressing.
“As it [the Nile] ebbs, the seedsman / Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain.”
- countable, uncountableAny mucilaginous substance; or a mucus-like substance which exudes from the bodies of certain animals, such as snails or slugs.
“You ſhould rub your Teeth and whole Mouth and Gums, the Pallate and Tongue, with a clean courſe cloth, rubbing off the ſlime which groweth upon them in the night.”
- countable, uncountableSynonym of flubber (“kind of rubbery polymer”).
- countable, uncountableA monster having the form of a slimy blob.
“This is a nameless blue slime, drawn by Chris Hildenbrand, for a role playing game (RPG) that was never released.”
- countable, figuratively, obsolete, uncountableHuman flesh, seen disparagingly; mere human form.
“[…] th'eternall Lord in fleshly slime / Enwombed was, from wretched Adams line / To purge away the guilt of sinfull crime […]”
- countable, obsolete, uncountableJew’s slime (bitumen).
“And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.”
- countable, slang, uncountableA friend; a homie.
- transitiveTo coat with slime.
“‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on ”
“Missy gave a low, snuffly bark and butted my hand, effectively sliming it.”
- figuratively, transitiveTo besmirch or disparage.
- To carve (fish), removing the offal.
“If so, this job was better than sliming salmon any day.”
“You and me bunked in that dorm on the hill, remember? And slimed fish under that tin roof down there.”
- intransitiveTo move like slime.
- figuratively, intransitiveTo behave in a slimy, unethical manner.
- slang, transitiveTo murder.
- Singapore, transitiveTo denigrate or slander.
Formsslimes(plural) · slimes(present, singular, third-person) · sliming(participle, present) · slimed(participle, past) · slimed(past)