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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

slime.

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.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/slaɪm/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/slɑem/Australia/slaɪm/New-Zealand[slɑe̯m]New-Zealand

  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.

    countable · uncountable

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

    countable · uncountable

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

    countable · uncountable

  4. A sneaky, unethical person; a slimeball.

    countable · derogatory · informal · uncountable

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

    countable · uncountable

  6. Human flesh, seen disparagingly; mere human form.

    countable · figuratively · obsolete · uncountable

  7. Jew’s slime (bitumen).

    countable · obsolete · uncountable

  8. A friend; a homie.

    countable · slang · uncountable

  9. Semen.

    countable · slang · uncountable · vulgar
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sley- Proto-Germanic *slīmą Old English slīm English slime 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”). The slang sense of "to murder" spread among Black communites throughout the 2010s and gained prominence on TikTok around 2021.

verb/slaɪm/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/slɑem/Australia/slaɪm/New-Zealand[slɑe̯m]New-Zealand

  1. To coat with slime.

    transitive

  2. To besmirch or disparage.

    figuratively · transitive

  3. To carve (fish), removing the offal.

  4. To move like slime.

    intransitive

  5. To behave in a slimy, unethical manner.

    figuratively · intransitive

  6. To murder.

    slang · transitive

  7. To denigrate or slander.

    Singapore · transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *sley- Proto-Germanic *slīmą Old English slīm English slime 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”). The slang sense of "to murder" spread among Black communites throughout the 2010s and gained prominence on TikTok around 2021.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.