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• slough
  slough

  noun

  the outer layer of the skin of a snake, which is cast off periodically.
• Slough
  Slough

  noun

  an industrial town in SE central England, in Slough unitary authority, Berkshire; food products, high-tech industries. Pop: 126 276 (2001)

slough

¹ American  

[sluhf] / slʌf /

Or sluff

noun

1. the outer layer of the skin of a snake, which is cast off periodically.

2. Pathology. a mass or layer of dead tissue separated from the surrounding or underlying tissue.

3. anything that is shed or cast off.

4. Cards. a discard.

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verb (used without object)

• sloughs,
  present (3rd person singular)
• sloughed,
  past participle,  past
• sloughing
  present participle

1. to be or become shed or cast off, as the slough of a snake.

2. to cast off a slough.

   Synonyms:

   molt

3. Pathology. to separate from the sound flesh, as a slough.

4. Cards. to discard a card or cards.

verb (used with object)

• sloughs,
  present (3rd person singular)
• sloughed,
  past participle,  past
• sloughing
  present participle

1. to dispose or get rid of; cast (often followed byoff ).

   to slough off a bad habit.

2. to shed as or like a slough.

3. Cards. to discard (cards).

verb phrase

1. slough over to treat as slight or trivial.

   to slough over a friend's mistake.

slough ² American  

[slou, sloo] / slaʊ, slu /

noun

1. a swamp or swamplike region.

2. Northern U.S. and Canada. Also slew, slue a usually shallow and slow-moving marshy or reedy body of water, such as one that provides drainage; wetland.

3. a hole full of mud or wet soil, such as one in a road.

4. a condition of degradation, despair, or helplessness.

   Exercise was one thing that helped to lift me out of the slough of depression.

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slough ¹ British  

/ slaʊ /

noun

1. a hollow filled with mud; bog

2. 1. (in the prairies) a large hole where water collects or the water in such a hole

   2. (in the northwest) a sluggish side channel of a river

   3. (on the Pacific coast) a marshy saltwater inlet

3. despair or degradation

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slough ² British  

/ slʌf /

noun

1. any outer covering that is shed, such as the dead outer layer of the skin of a snake, the cellular debris in a wound, etc

2. Also: sluff.  bridge a discarded card

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verb

1. (often foll by off) to shed (a skin, etc) or (of a skin, etc) to be shed

2. Also: sluff.  bridge to discard (a card or cards)

Slough ³ British  

/ slaʊ /

noun

1. an industrial town in SE central England, in Slough unitary authority, Berkshire; food products, high-tech industries. Pop: 126 276 (2001)

2. a unitary authority in SE central England, in Berkshire. Pop: 118 800 (2003 est). Area: 28 sq km (11 sq miles)

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slough Scientific  

/ slŭf /

1. The dead outer skin shed by a reptile or an amphibian.

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1. To shed an outer layer of skin.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• sloughiness
  noun
• sloughy
  adjective
• unsloughed
  adjective
• unsloughing
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• sloughing
  present
• sloughed
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• slough
  simple
• sloughs
  simple
• have sloughed
  perfect
• has sloughed
  perfect
• am sloughing
  progressive
• are sloughing
  progressive
• is sloughing
  progressive
• have been sloughing
  perfect progressive
• has been sloughing
  perfect progressive

Past

• sloughed
  simple
• had sloughed
  perfect
• was sloughing
  progressive
• were sloughing
  progressive
• had been sloughing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will slough
  simple
• will have sloughed
  perfect
• will be sloughing
  progressive
• will have been sloughing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of slough¹

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English slough, slugh(e), slouh “skin of a snake”; cognate with Low German sluwe, slu “husk, peel,” German Schlauch “skin, wineskin, bag”

Origin of slough²

First recorded before 900; Middle English slough(e), slouh(e) “muddy place, mud hole,” Old English slōh, slōg; cognate with Middle Low German slōch, Middle High German sluoche “ditch”; further origin uncertain

Explanation

When you slough, you get rid of the rough. To slough is to remove an outer layer, like filing dry skin from feet. You can slough away emotions too, like the heebie-jeebies you get thinking about dead skin from people's feet. Ew. Slough rhymes with "rough." It doesn't sound as though it'll give you a beautiful result, but when you slough away old skin, new skin appears. Snakes shed or slough off their skins as they grow and get rid of icky cells, and humans do the same, though fortunately we don't slough off one big skin as snakes do. Maybe it's best to slough off that mental image with a nicer one.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

slough Slough sloughs sloughed sloughing

But competition in the industry is heating up as other insurers slough off inflationary distortions, analysts said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026

It’s the sort of drill where it’s easy enough to slough off a rep or two.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 6, 2025

It probably gets into the water as bits slough off when the bottle is squeezed or gets exposed to heat.

From Science Daily ● Jan. 8, 2024

Varon describes her famously mercurial subject as “gloomy” and “in a funk,” struggling to “fight his way out of his slough of despond,” harboring “a fatalistic despair.”

From Slate ● Nov. 20, 2023

Wintergreen sneered obnoxiously, resting his filthy GI shoe on his spade and lounging back in a surly slough against the wall of one of the deep, square holes it was his military specialty to dig.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

And as author Mick Herron continues to write new books in the Slough House series, there’s no immediate end in sight.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2026

Nestere Yehdego, 31, his wife and their two daughters aged four and one are squashed together in a one-bedroom flat in Slough.

From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2026

On a visit to Slough, communities secretary Steve Reed said the scheme was "doing politics in a very different way".

From BBC ● Mar. 20, 2026

Roger Towersey, who taught geography at Ditton Park Academy in Slough, Berkshire, also admitted to spending about £1,000 on fast food for "vulnerable" students.

From BBC ● Mar. 12, 2026

Following its south-easterly course across the dark plain their eyes were drawn to the majestic buildings of the Slough Crematorium.

From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

Today, abandoned barge cranes lie rusting and rotting in delta sloughs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026

The fish were historically found in backwaters and sloughs along the lower Colorado River and in slow-moving seeps and streams in the Salton Sink basin, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 27, 2024

But there's no small amount of controversy when it comes to marshes, mires, fens, bogs, vernal pools, prairie ponds, pocosins, sloughs, small streams, seasonal streams, and rain-dependent streams.

From Salon ● May 2, 2023

The last of four breaches on Steamboat and Union sloughs should be done by mid-October, allowing the historical tidal channels, marsh and mud flats to breathe again.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 12, 2022

The fox went a-walking Down by the sloughs; But it made me so sad, For she had no shoes.

From "Dragonwings" by Laurence Yep

The material lasted for about five days, after which it was sloughed off along with the top layer of tissue as the surgical wounds healed.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 12, 2024

I’d explain how my daughter sloughed off embryos that were surgically implanted at $30,000 a pop.

From Salon ● Feb. 26, 2024

Over time, the bits of rock sloughed off the comet drift away from its orbital path, so the meteors spread out in space.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 11, 2023

Oscar winner Gary Oldman stars as Jackson Lamb, a sharp-tongued veteran spy and the supervisor of Slough House, where intelligence officers who have fallen out of favor are sloughed aside.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 14, 2023

Some dirt had sloughed off an embankment and some track had moved itself a bit.

From "Life Is So Good" by George Dawson

At best, the idea relates to some kind of individual flourishing, the opposite of corporate serfdom, a sloughing off of organizational chains leading to an explosion of creativity.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 16, 2026

And yet here he is, sloughing off yet another weekend for the cause—ignoring all evidence to the contrary that a better world is possible.

From Slate ● Apr. 9, 2025

But consider adding on a scrub and sloughing off a layer or two of skin — it’s my favorite way to enter the new year.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 1, 2025

Ethnicity and age did not appear to affect touch DNA deposits and the small sample of those with sloughing skin conditions, like eczema, did not show any significant association with primary DNA transfer.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 14, 2024

It wasn’t as deliberate as deciding, at age six, to become an atheist, but more like an imperceptible sloughing of layers.

From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García