slime

English

Etymology

From Old English slīm, from Proto-Germanic. Cognates include Dutch slijm, German Schleim (“mucus, slime”), also see Latin limus (“mud”), Ancient Greek λίμνη (límnē, “marsh”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: slīm, IPA^(key): /slaɪm/
• Rhymes: -aɪm

Noun

slime (plural slimes)

1. 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.
   • Shakespeare

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

2. Any mucilaginous substance; or a mucus-like substance which exudes from the bodies of certain animals, such as snails or slugs.
3. (figuratively, obsolete) Human flesh, seen disparagingly; mere human form.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.x:

     th'eternall Lord in fleshly slime / Enwombed was, from wretched Adams line / To purge away the guilt of sinfull crime [...].

4. (obsolete) = Jew’s slime (bitumen)
   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible (Authorized Version), Genesis 11:3

     And 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

• slime mold
• pink slime

Synonyms

• (any substance of a dirty nature): sludge

Translations

mucilaginous substance or mucus-like substance

• Basque: elder (eu)
• Czech: sliz (cs) m
• Dutch: slijm (nl) n
• Finnish: lima (fi)
• German: Schleim (de) m
• Japanese: スライム (suraimu), ぬめり (滑り, numeri)

• Maori: hūwareware
• Persian: لجن (fa) (lajan)
• Portuguese: gosma (pt) f, lodo (pt) m
• Scottish Gaelic: clàbar m
• Spanish: lama (es) f, cieno (es) m, baba (es) f, légamo (es) m, moco (es) m

Verb

slime (third-person singular simple present slimes, present participle sliming, simple past and past participle slimed)

1. (transitive) To coat with slime.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, The China Governess^[1]:

     ‘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. […]’

2. (transitive, figuratively) To besmirch or disparage.

Anagrams

• limes
• miles, Miles
• smile