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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  

[slau, 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

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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

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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 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

Despite it all, the Oregon Democrat described himself as “pathologically upbeat” and suggested there’s a way out of today’s slough of congressional dysfunction.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 28, 2023

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

That afternoon, while Úrsula was trying to rescue Rebeca from the slough of delirium, he went with Magnífico Visbal and Gerineldo Márquez to Catarino's store.

From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Europe’s largest cluster of data centers is in Slough, a town 25 miles west of London, with only Virginia in the U.S. boasting more globally.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

“I switch out my pans, and I’m careful with knives and cutting boards to avoid cross contamination,” said Charlie Granquist, chef at Slough Farm.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026

Fishtail Tours and Travels confirmed Leena Bector, from Slough, was among 27 travellers linked to the tour company who remain unaccounted for.

From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026

Unlike most of the Slough House misfits, River often drives the action sequences, which means you do a lot of running.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 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

Snow geese and coruscating tulips draw me to the sloughs and wetlands where the serpentine Skagit River flows into the Salish Sea.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 16, 2023

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

Now it was time to harvest the wild rice that grew across from the island in the great sloughs of Kakagon, where Mama’s brother and one of her sisters lived.

From "The Birchbark House" by Louise Erdrich

Oil prices sloughed off fresh Middle East violence.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026

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

From Salon ● Feb. 26, 2024

The state has relatively young mountains from a geology standpoint, meaning much of its steep terrain is still in motion and covered in loose rocks and soil that can be sloughed off easily.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 6, 2024

The strongest visual effect of suspended sediment was the aggregation of sediment particles on the jellyfish after just ~1.5 hours of incubation, to which the jellyfish started to produce excess mucus that slowly sloughed off.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 21, 2023

In that light all form of man sloughed off the thing that came towards Ged.

From "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. Le Guin

However, some men have ended up in A&E with a penis turning black and skin "sloughing off" after a botched procedure.

From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026

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

Motherhood has made Slate gentler on herself, sloughing off feelings of foolishness, self-criticism and self-doubt.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2024

The miner was working a block, he said, sloughing off the coal until all that was left was a pillar.

From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam

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