oil slick
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of oil slick
First recorded in 1885–90
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Everyone hates regulation—until a plane crashes or an oil slick washes ashore.
From Barron's ● Nov. 21, 2025
You want crunch and savor, not oil slick.
From Salon ● Aug. 5, 2025
The Rubymar was an “environmental disaster” even before sinking because the attack created an 18-mile oil slick, Central Command warned last month.
From New York Times ● Mar. 3, 2024
“We’d go — my mom would drive us to school in the morning ... there would be an oil slick on the wiper. Because, guess what? It’s all the fence-line communities who get hurt.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 15, 2024
The hapless rowboat circles the pole in the growing whirlpool and the pitch holding together its copper planks abandons it, spilling into the water like an oil slick.
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
