slime

CEFRB2

/slaɪm/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A thick, slippery substance.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    Any mucilaginous substance; or a mucus-like substance which exudes from the bodies of certain animals, such as snails or slugs.

Examples

  • There was green slime oozing out of the pipe.

  • Green slime oozed out the pipe.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
2

Also pronounced

  • [slɑe̯m]
  • /slɑem/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. Synonym of flubber (“kind of rubbery polymer”).

  2. 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.

  3. A monster having the form of a slimy blob.

More examples

In context

  • As it [the Nile] ebbs, the seedsman / Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain.

  • 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.

  • If so, this job was better than sliming salmon any day.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

After the rain, a thick layer of green blank formed on the damp stones in the garden.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

From 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, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk slim, Swedish slem, Faroese and Icelandic slím (“slime”), Latin limus (“mud”), Ancient Greek λίμνη (límnē, “marsh”).