ooze
1 Americanverb (used without object)
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oozes,
present (3rd person singular)
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oozed,
past participle, past
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oozing
present participle
-
(of moisture, liquid, etc.) to flow, percolate, or exude slowly, as through holes or small openings.
-
to move or pass slowly or gradually, as if through a small opening or passage.
The crowd oozed toward the entrance.
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(of a substance) to exude moisture.
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(of something abstract, as information or courage) to appear or disappear slowly or imperceptibly (often followed by out oraway ).
His cockiness oozed away during my rebuttal speech.
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to display some characteristic or quality.
to ooze with piety.
verb (used with object)
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oozes,
present (3rd person singular)
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oozed,
past participle, past
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oozing
present participle
-
to make by oozing.
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to exude (moisture, air, etc.) slowly.
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to display or dispense freely and conspicuously.
He can ooze charm when it serves his interest.
noun
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Geology. a calcareous or siliceous mud composed chiefly of the shells of one-celled organisms, covering parts of the ocean bottom.
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soft mud, or slime.
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a marsh or bog.
verb
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(intr) to flow or leak out slowly, as through pores or very small holes
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to exude or emit (moisture, gas, etc)
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(tr) to overflow with
to ooze charm
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to disappear or escape gradually
noun
-
a slow flowing or leaking
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an infusion of vegetable matter, such as sumach or oak bark, used in tanning
noun
-
a soft thin mud found at the bottom of lakes and rivers
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a fine-grained calcareous or siliceous marine deposit consisting of the hard parts of planktonic organisms
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muddy ground, esp of bogs
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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oozesimple
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oozessimple
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have oozedperfect
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has oozedperfect
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am oozingprogressive
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are oozingprogressive
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is oozingprogressive
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have been oozingperfect progressive
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has been oozingperfect progressive
Past
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oozedsimple
-
had oozedperfect
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was oozingprogressive
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were oozingprogressive
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had been oozingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of ooze1
First recorded before 1000; Middle English noun wose, woze, Old English wōs “juice, moisture”; verb derivative of the noun
Origin of ooze2
First recorded before 900; Middle English wose, woze, Old English wāse “mud, slime”
Explanation
The beauty of the word ooze is not only that it's both a noun and a verb but also that the word sounds like what it means. The ooze on the bottom of the pond oozed between your toes. When something oozes, it seeps out slowly in an unappetizing way. Cheese sauce oozes out of the container. Sludge oozes out of a treatment plant. Cream oozes out of a tube. Whatever is oozing is referred to as ooze. After an oil spill, a cleanup crew has to clean up the ooze that collects on the shore. It can also be used to describe someone's behavior if it's especially awful. A person who is really bad, for example, can be said to ooze evil.
Vocabulary lists containing ooze
Scrabble: Four-Letter Words with 3 Vowels
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James and the Giant Peach
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Shiloh
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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.
See Examples For:
“Michael” is bizarre because everything left unsaid still lingers between the lines, sandwiched between the formidable melodies of his greatest hits, like toxic ooze leaking out from the middle of two slices of Wonderbread.
From Salon ● Apr. 25, 2026
One close to the seafront, where the near-200-year-old golf club gives way to a spectacular view across the Firth of Forth to the Bass Rock, has its keypad caked in a sticky black ooze.
From BBC ● Mar. 1, 2026
But nearly two years later, water started to ooze from a different well in the same area, a sign that bottling up the geyser likely repressurized the subsurface and triggered the new outburst, scientists said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 26, 2025
Bathers are an artistic signal for life crawling onto shore out of the primordial ooze or basking in a pastoral, prelapsarian paradise.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 16, 2025
And that night the others lying on the floor in their squares watched Hughie ooze gracefully into his cot—they heard him sigh with abysmal comfort and he was asleep and snoring before anyone else.
From "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck
"Instead of water, oil comes out," said retired military officer Hector Valero Balestrini, gesturing toward a hillside where crude oozes naturally from the ground.
From Barron's ● Sep. 26, 2026
“That greatness just kind of oozes out of her,” Reeve said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
The European champions haven't tried to reinvent the wheel with this kit, but it oozes class.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026
One character oozes confidence; the other struggles to gain any respect, even though he is in a position of power.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2026
Mud oozes between my toes, and I visualize a million leeches crawling up my legs and digging their suckers into my skin.
From "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed
A 20-year-old with ear piercings and ripped skinny jeans, Johnson oozed charisma; his profile on the app skyrocketed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026
I watched in awe as melted cheese oozed out from inside, forming a delicious crust along the edges of my cooked omelette.
From Salon ● Mar. 21, 2026
Infiniti oozed glamour in a lilac sleeveless Louis Vuitton dress with a fitted bodice and a cascade of ruffles tumbling from her hip to the floor, creating a long train.
From Barron's ● Mar. 15, 2026
His last film was the willfully obtuse 2022 French Polynesian political thriller “Pacifiction,” which more often oozed colonial malaise through its painterly landscapes than any narrative.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2025
She led them quickly to an area where the ground they walked on was soft and squishy; water oozed between their toes as they walked.
From "Copper Sun" by Sharon M. Draper
At the buffet for the central command post in Lege-Cap-Ferret, it takes two full-size catering trays to contain the range of artisanal cheeses crumbling or oozing onto the warm metal for the firefighters' pleasure.
From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 2026
Bellingham's now iconic 'who else' celebration showcased his oozing self-confidence - but provided another example of the 'main character syndrome' that Southgate and some of the players had begun to notice.
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
It’s complete with a mashed potato “volcano” that’s oozing with gravy lava, along with dino nugget inhabitants and steamed broccoli for trees.
From Salon ● Jun. 28, 2026
This mammoth died nearby, but his carcass slumped into an ancient stream bed and was covered by sediment and eventually topped by the pits’ oozing asphalt, encasing and preserving his bones.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026
The brownish-green husks, oozing their dark purple stain, were beaten off on a flat rock outside the cabin.
From "Sounder" by William H. Armstrong
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.
