slime

English

Etymology

From Middle English slime, slyme, slim, slym, from Old English slīm, from Proto-Germanic *slīmą, from Proto-Indo-European *sley- (“smooth; slick; sticky; slimy”). Cognates include Danish slim, Saterland Frisian Sliem, Dutch slijm, German Schleim (“mucus, slime”), Latin limus (“mud”), Ancient Greek λίμνη (límnē, “marsh”).

Pronunciation

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

Noun

slime (countable and uncountable, 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. (informal, derogatory) A sneaky, unethical person; a slimeball.
   • 2005, G. E. Nordell, Backlot Requiem: A Rick Walker Mystery

     If this guy knows who killed Robert, the right thing to do is to tell the police. If he doesn't know, really, then he's an opportunistic slime. It's still blackmail.

4. (figuratively, obsolete) Human flesh, seen disparagingly; mere human form.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, London: William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book II, canto X:

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

5. (obsolete) = Jew’s slime (bitumen)
   • 1611, Bible (King James 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

mud

• Esperanto: koto (eo), ŝlimo (eo)
• Finnish: lieju (fi)
• Galician: lama f, verdoia f, borba f, untullo m, vasa f, label m, verdello m
• Georgian: ტალახი (ṭalaxi)

• Italian: melma (it) f
• Russian: жижа (ru) f (žiža), месиво (ru) n (mesivo)
• Spanish: limo (es) m, cieno (es) m, lama (es) f, légamo (es) m
• Tagalog: alabwab

mucilaginous substance or mucus-like substance

• Basque: elder (eu)
• Belarusian: слізь f (slizʹ), шлам m (šlam), іл m (il)
• Bulgarian: слуз m (sluz)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 淤泥 (zh) (yūní)

• Czech: sliz (cs) m
• Danish: slim (da) c, n
• Dutch: slijm (nl) n
• Esperanto: muko (eo)
• Finnish: lima (fi)
• French: mucosité (fr) f
• Galician: garro m, goldro m, mormo m
• Georgian: ლორწო (lorc̣o)
• German: Schleim (de) m
• Ido: slamo (io)
• Italian: poltiglia (it) f
• Japanese: スライム (suraimu), ぬめり (numeri), 滑り (ぬめり, numeri)

• Low German: Sliem m
• Macedonian: слуз m (sluz)
• Maori: hūwareware
• Persian: لجن‏‎ (fa) (lajan)
• Polish: śluz (pl) m, szlam (pl) m
• Portuguese: gosma (pt) f, lodo (pt) m
• Russian: слизь (ru) f (slizʹ), шлам (ru) m (šlam), ил (ru) m (il)
• Scottish Gaelic: clàbar m
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: слуз m

  Roman: sluz (sh) m

• Slovak: sliz m
• Slovene: sluz m
• Spanish: baba (es) f, moco (es) m
• Tagalog: banlik
• Ukrainian: слиз m (slyz), іл m (il), шлам m (šlam)

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, in 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

• Imels, Liems, Miles, limes, miles, milse, misle, smile