slough.

The skin shed by a snake or other reptile.

That is the slough of a rattler; we must be careful.

Dead skin on a sore or ulcer.

This is the slough that came off of his skin after the burn.

To shed skin or outer layers.

This skin is being sloughed.

Snakes slough their skin periodically.

To slide off or flake off, as an outer layer, such as skin, might do.

A week after he was burned, a layer of skin on his arm sloughed off.

To discard.

East sloughed a heart.

To commit truancy, be absent from school without permission.

A marshy or muddy area.

A type of swamp or shallow lake system, typically formed as or by the backwater of a larger waterway, similar to a bayou with trees.

We paddled under a canopy of trees through the slough.

A secondary channel of a river delta, usually flushed by the tide.

The Sacramento River Delta contains dozens of sloughs that are often used for water-skiing and fishing.

A state of depression.

John is in a slough.

A small pond, often alkaline, many but not all formed by glacial potholes.

Potholes or sloughs formed by a glacier’s retreat from the central plains of North America, are now known to be some of the world’s most productive ecosystems.