Slime
Pronunciation
- enPR: slīm, IPA: /slaɪm/
- Rhymes: -aɪm
Origin
From Old English slÄ«m, from Proto-Germanic. Cognates include Dutch slijm, German Schleim ("mucus, slime"), also see Latin limus ("mud"), Ancient Greek λίμνη (lÃmnÄ“, "marsh").
Full definition of slime
Noun
slime
(plural slimes)- Soft, 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.
- ShakespeareAs it Nile ebbs, the seedsman
Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain. - Any mucilaginous substance; or a mucus-like substance which exudes from the bodies of certain animals, such as snails or slugs.
- (figuratively, obsolete) Human flesh, seen disparagingly; mere human form.
- Spenser Faerie Queene, II.x:th'eternall Lord in fleshly slime
Enwombed was, from wretched Adams line
To purge away the guilt of sinfull crime .... - (obsolete) = Jew's slime (bitumen)
- AV|Genesis|11|3And 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.
Derived terms
Synonyms
- (any substance of a dirty nature) sludge
Verb
- (transitive) To coat with slime.
- 1963, Margery Allingham, The China Governess Chapter 7, ‘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 them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared. …’
- (transitive, figuratively) To besmirch or disparage.