Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The dead outer skin shed by a reptile or amphibian.
- noun Medicine A layer or mass of dead tissue separated from surrounding living tissue, as in a wound, sore, or inflammation.
- noun An outer layer or covering that is shed or removed.
- intransitive verb To be cast off or shed; come off.
- intransitive verb To shed a slough.
- intransitive verb Medicine To separate from surrounding living tissue. Used of dead tissue.
- intransitive verb To cast off or shed (skin or a covering).
- intransitive verb To discard or disregard as undesirable or unfavorable.
- noun A depression or hollow, usually filled with deep mud or mire.
- noun A stagnant swamp, marsh, bog, or pond, especially as part of a bayou, inlet, or backwater.
- noun A state of deep despair or moral degradation.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To come off as a slough: often with off.
- To cast off a slough.
- To cast off as a slough; in pathology, to throw off, as a dead mass from an ulcer or a wound.
- A Middle English variant of
slow . - noun A hole full of deep mud or mire; a quagmire of considerable depth and comparatively small extent of surface.
- noun (slö), A marshy hollow; a reedy pond; also, a long shallow ravine, or open creek, which becomes partly or wholly dry in summer.
- noun Synonyms Swamp, etc. See
marsh . - noun 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.
- noun In pathology, a dead part of tissue which separates from the surrounding living tissue, and is cast off in the act of sloughing.
- noun A husk.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb (Med.) To form a slough; to separate in the form of dead matter from the living tissues; -- often used with
off , oraway - imp. of
slee , to slay. Slew. - transitive verb To cast off; to discard as refuse.
- noun A place of deep mud or mire; a hole full of mire.
- noun A wet place; a swale; a side channel or inlet from a river.
- noun (Bot.) a name in the Mississippi valley for grasses of the genus Muhlenbergia; -- called also
drop seed , andnimble Will . - adjective obsolete Slow.
- noun The skin, commonly the cast-off skin, of a serpent or of some similar animal.
- noun (Med.) The dead mass separating from a foul sore; the dead part which separates from the living tissue in mortification.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun UK A muddy or marshy area.
- noun A type of
swamp or shallowlake system , typically formed as or by thebackwater of a largerwaterway , similar to abayou with trees. - noun Western United States A secondary channel of a
river delta , usually flushed by thetide . - noun A state of
depression . - noun Canadian Prairies A small
pond , often alkaine, many but not all are formed by glacialpotholes . - noun The skin shed by a
snake or other reptile. - noun Dead skin on a
sore orulcer . - verb transitive To
shed (skin). - verb transitive, card games To
discard .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a stagnant swamp (especially as part of a bayou)
- noun any outer covering that can be shed or cast off (such as the cast-off skin of a snake)
- noun a hollow filled with mud
- verb cast off hair, skin, horn, or feathers
- noun necrotic tissue; a mortified or gangrenous part or mass
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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On Mitchell Slough, a part of the Bitterroot River, the billionaire discount broker Charles Schwab and the singer Huey Lewis have banded together with other landowners to argue that the slough is actually an irrigation ditch and shouldn't be open to the public.
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We had a small stream, which we called a slough, that ran behind our house.
Steve and Me Terri Irwin 2007
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We had a small stream, which we called a slough, that ran behind our house.
Steve and Me Terri Irwin 2007
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And, the B7 line, once it's on the other side of the slough, is measurably further away from wetlands and sensitive areas as well.
Bellevue Council Votes for South Section of “Vision Line” « PubliCola 2010
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Trouble was there was a slight slough from a pond right up to the fence.
what is your closest call to a bad experience while hunting? 2009
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Trouble was there was a slight slough from a pond right up to the fence.
what is your closest call to a bad experience while hunting? 2009
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The Bitterroot River Protection Association says the slough is free flowing, which under Montana law would make it open to the public.
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The slough was a large shallow embayment and a quiet water estuary with little tidal influence.
Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, California 2007
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Among the most abundant shorebirds in the slough are the western sandpiper, least sandpiper, marbled godwit, dowitchers, willet, American avocet, black-bellied plover, sanderling and long-billed curlew.
Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, California 2007
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Like another genius it had taken possession of him and led him through what Jewdwine had called the slough of journalism, so that he went with fine fastidious feet, choosing the clean places in that difficult way.
The Divine Fire May Sinclair 1904
slumry commented on the word slough
"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."
July 17, 2007
oroboros commented on the word slough
Shed (off); estuary,marsh.
November 22, 2007
yarb commented on the word slough
Citation on foden.
June 29, 2008
marco_nj commented on the word slough
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"
January 27, 2009
sionnach commented on the word slough
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)
July 6, 2009
rolig commented on the word slough
I love sight rhymes! They're like aural–optical illusions. (See the discussion on eye rhyme.)
July 6, 2009
grandpa27 commented on the word slough
I aways heard slough as ending in f like stuff, when a snake sheds his skin.
When talking swamp-like pronounced slue.
October 26, 2012
oroboros commented on the word slough
A cartoon comment on slough.
April 9, 2014