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  1. slough love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A depression or hollow, usually filled with deep mud or mire.
  2. n. A stagnant swamp, marsh, bog, or pond, especially as part of a bayou, inlet, or backwater.
  3. n. A state of deep despair or moral degradation.
  4. n. The dead outer skin shed by a reptile or amphibian.
  5. n. Medicine A layer or mass of dead tissue separated from surrounding living tissue, as in a wound, sore, or inflammation.
  6. n. An outer layer or covering that is shed.
  7. v. To be cast off or shed; come off: The snake's skin sloughs off.
  8. v. To shed a slough.
  9. v. Medicine To separate from surrounding living tissue. Used of dead tissue.
  10. v. To discard as undesirable or unfavorable; get rid of: slough off former associates.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A hole full of deep mud or mire; a quagmire of considerable depth and comparatively small extent of surface.
  2. n. (slö), A marshy hollow; a reedy pond; also, a long shallow ravine, or open creek, which becomes partly or wholly dry in summer.
  3. n. Synonyms Swamp, etc. See marsh.
  4. n. The skin of a serpent, usually the cast skin; also, any part of an animal that is naturally shed or molted; a cast; an exuvium.
  5. n. In pathology, a dead part of tissue which separates from the surrounding living tissue, and is cast off in the act of sloughing.
  6. n. A husk.
  7. To come off as a slough: often with off. To be shed, cast, molted, or exuviated, as the skin of a snake.
  8. To cast off a slough.
  9. To cast off as a slough; in pathology, to throw off, as a dead mass from an ulcer or a wound.
  10. A Middle English variant of slow.

Wiktionary

  1. n. The skin shed by a snake or other reptile.
  2. n. Dead skin on a sore or ulcer.
  3. v. transitive To shed (skin).
  4. v. transitive, card games To discard.
  5. n. UK A muddy or marshy area.
  6. n. A type of swamp or shallow lake system, typically formed as or by the backwater of a larger waterway, similar to a bayou with trees.
  7. n. Western United States A secondary channel of a river delta, usually flushed by the tide.
  8. n. A state of depression.
  9. n. Canadian Prairies A small pond, often alkaine, many but not all are formed by glacial potholes.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. obsolete Slow.
  2. n. A place of deep mud or mire; a hole full of mire.
  3. n. A wet place; a swale; a side channel or inlet from a river.
  4. imp. of slee, to slay. Slew.
  5. n. The skin, commonly the cast-off skin, of a serpent or of some similar animal.
  6. n. (Med.) The dead mass separating from a foul sore; the dead part which separates from the living tissue in mortification.
  7. v. (Med.) To form a slough; to separate in the form of dead matter from the living tissues; -- often used with off, or away
  8. v. To cast off; to discard as refuse.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a stagnant swamp (especially as part of a bayou)
  2. n. any outer covering that can be shed or cast off (such as the cast-off skin of a snake)
  3. n. a hollow filled with mud
  4. v. cast off hair, skin, horn, or feathers
  5. n. necrotic tissue; a mortified or gangrenous part or mass

Etymologies

  1. From Old English slōh, probably from Proto-Germanic *slōhaz. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English, from Old English slōh.Middle English slughe. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

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Lists

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Comments

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  • grandpa27 I aways heard slough as ending in f like stuff, when a snake sheds his skin.
    When talking swamp-like pronounced slue. Oct 26, 2012

  • rolig I love sight rhymes! They're like aural–optical illusions. (See the discussion on eye rhyme.) Jul 6, 2009

  • sionnach There was an old lady from Slough
    Who developed a terrible cough.
    She drank half a pint
    Of warm honey and mint,
    But, sadly, she didn't pull through.

    (courtesy of the Futility Closet) Jul 6, 2009

  • marco_nj In card games such as hearts, can be used as a verb for passing undesirable cards unto your opponents

    Also a polo term: "The action taken by a defender when he moves away from his opponent to help defend in another area" Jan 27, 2009

  • yarb Citation on foden. Jun 29, 2008

  • oroboros Shed (off); estuary,marsh. Nov 21, 2007

  • slumry "slew" (a marshy body of water isolated in its original channel) and, phonetically, "sluff." Apparently the words have different roots--spelled the same funny way, but otherwise unrelated. There are other definitions of the word that are pronounced "slou," having meanings literally or metaphorically similar to "slew." Jul 17, 2007

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‘slough’ has been looked up 6726 times, loved by 5 people, added to 53 lists, commented on 7 times, and has a Scrabble score of 10.