Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A tricky precarious situation, especially one that leads gradually but inexorably to disaster: "[Without] a clear boundary to confer personhood on a human being ... we approach a slippery slope that ends in the disposal of inconvenient people” ( Steven Pinker).
Wiktionary
- n. idiomatic A chain of events that, once initiated, cannot be halted; especially one in which the final outcome is undesirable or precarious.
- n. An argument that follows a chain of events or causes and effects to some conclusion.
Examples
“A recent study comparing thirty-four heroin addicts in a treatment program with fifty-nine non-drug-using controls found that addicts were significantly higher on our scales of present hedonism and fatalism, and significantly lower in future orientation.18 But how can time perspective end up oiling the slippery slope to drug addiction?”
“The economist Herbert Heaton wrote in 1928 that Canadian “cards and bills alike found themselves on the steep slippery slope of war finance.””
Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
“The argument against creative capitalism has to be a more complicated oneperhaps an argument about how changing corporate goals will lead to a slippery slope or undermine the legitimacy of capitalism.”
“Herman Melville in his 1876 Clarel: “The steeds withstand the slippery slope / While yet their outflung fore-feet grope.””
Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
“Young Earth Creationists argue that accepting anything other than acts of special divine creation during the six twenty-four-hour days of Genesis 1 would put the believer on a slippery slope toward a counterfeit faith.”
“Logicians are very cautious about slippery slope arguments because it is impossible to know beforehand, with absolute deductive certainty, that an “if-then” statement is true.”
Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘slippery slope’.
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Water always flows downhill
The path of least resistance, watercourses, plumbing....
swale, hollow, creek, crick, depression, holler, draw, ditch, corrie, cwm, continental divide, stream and 89 more...
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My Little Phonies
Names for the next generation of My Little Ponies. Inspired by Star's list.
juggernaught, flamboyant, cuddly maggot, astrobleme, agroof, windburn, poshlost, crucifer, feedbag, dunderwhelp, nebelwerfer, bliss ninny and 453 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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A Long, Strange Trip
You'll definitely need a map. Inspired by Son of Groucho's comment on Islets of Langerhans.
slough of despond, pit of despair, den of iniquity, islets of langerhans, hippocampus, boulevard of brok..., canals of hering, hesselbach's tria..., crypts of lieberkühn, angle of louis, circle of willis, traube's space and 102 more...
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Wildfeed
Miscellaenous madness. A Wordnik bad-trip Phantom Zone.
oxygen debt, film theory, confoozled, phlegmagogue, green thumb wresting, microbubble, fail reserve, shit no-fly list, sporked tongue, absolute obedienc..., powerpoint singalong, codex alimentarius and 137 more...
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Fun Phrases & Idioms
dust up, wreak havoc, the willies, cash cow, average joe, drama queen, fancy pants, houston we have a..., in your face, just deserts, kangaroo court, quality time and 78 more...
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fallacies
argumentum ad ant..., argumentum ad bac..., argumentum ad cru..., argumentum ad ign..., argumentum ad laz..., argumentum ad log..., argumentum ad mis..., argumentum ad nov..., argumentum ad num..., argumentum ad pop..., argumentum ad ver..., bifurcation and 15 more...
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problem words
quagmire, jam, fix, dilemma, predicament, pickle, quandary, mess, riddle, enigma, can of worms, pandora's box and 45 more...
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That Would Be Illogical
Mr. Spock didn't need this list. But the rest of us might find it useful, if we have a point to prove.
beg the question, ad hominem, straw man, false precision, guilt by association, slippery slope, bifurcation, redefinition, exclusive premises, appeal to emotion, biased sample, circular argument and 4 more...
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Mogeltron
Miscellaneous idiolect that could be used to assemble a Whichbe simulator.
point of skew, character as fate, doubt for doubt, story of my life, cumulative effect, default settings, reasonable, or tr..., take care, relative proportion, is that so, cognitive bias, and whatnot and 41 more...
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Nicht geschmack
words not to my taste
real world, slippery slope, paranoid, disenfranchise, schlep, flaggelation, vigilant, cantankerous
Tweets
Looking for tweets for slippery slope.
sonofgroucho I love this expression. Nov 2, 2007