In Sydney it was across the Harbor, in London it was outside the city in Basildon or slough.
A week after the inauguration, his wife, Lady Bird, watched with worry as a “slough of despond” surrounded her husband.
After baiting we continued down the slough about six miles to some passable springs, and to where there is better grass.
It has been objected to this operation that the flap is apt to slough.
It could not be otherwise if England was to emerge from the slough in which Mary had left it.
But you guessed it long before that—when we were out at the slough?
They had been down skating on the slough, a number of the youngsters and the daughters of the garrison.
A cemetery by the sea, a peak of glory, a slough of despond.
I had to feel my way in the slough creek that had narrowed now to six or eight feet through high grass.
The words of the Man of Sorrows had lifted him above the slough.
"muddy place," Old English sloh "soft, muddy ground," of uncertain origin. Cf. Middle Low German sloch "muddy place," Middle High German sluoche "ditch." Figurative use (e.g. of moral sunkenness or Bunyan's "Slough of Despond," 1678) attested from mid-13c.
"cast-off skin" (of a snake or other animal), early 14c., slughe, slouh, probably related to Old Saxon sluk "skin of a snake," Middle High German sluch "snakeskin, wineskin," Middle Low German slu "husk, peel, skin," German Schlauch "wineskin;" from Proto-Germanic *sluk-, of uncertain origin, perhaps from PIE root *sleug- "to glide."
"to cast off" (as the skin of a snake or other animal), 1720, originally of diseased tissue, from Middle English noun slough "shed skin of a snake" (see slough (n.)). Related: Sloughed; sloughing.
slough (slŭf)
n.
A layer or mass of dead tissue separated from surrounding living tissue, as in a wound, a sore, or an inflammation. v. sloughed, slough·ing, sloughs
To separate from surrounding living tissue. Used of dead tissue.
verb
To waste time; to start to lose momentum or interest in a project: sloughing off on the homework
