slime
Americannoun
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slimes
plural
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thin, glutinous mud.
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any ropy or viscous liquid matter, especially of a foul kind.
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a viscous secretion of animal or vegetable origin.
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Also called slimeball. Slang. a repulsive or despicable person.
verb (used with object)
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slimes,
present (3rd person singular)
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slimed,
past participle, past
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sliming
present participle
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to cover or smear with or as if with slime.
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to remove slime from, as fish for canning.
noun
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soft thin runny mud or filth
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any moist viscous fluid, esp when noxious or unpleasant
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a mucous substance produced by various organisms, such as fish, slugs, and fungi
verb
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to cover with slime
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to remove slime from (fish) before canning
Usage
What else does slime mean? What’s up, slime? Slime is slang for a (usually male) "friend," often used as a term of address, like dude or bro.
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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slimesimple
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slimessimple
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have slimedperfect
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has slimedperfect
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am slimingprogressive
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are slimingprogressive
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is slimingprogressive
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have been slimingperfect progressive
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has been slimingperfect progressive
Past
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slimedsimple
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had slimedperfect
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was slimingprogressive
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were slimingprogressive
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had been slimingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of slime
before 1000; Middle English slyme, Old English slīm; cognate with Dutch slijm, German Schleim, Old Norse slīm
Explanation
Slime is a substance that's slippery, damp, and gooey, like the slime that grows on the bottom on a swimming pool if it's not cleaned often enough. People are generally disgusted by slime, so if your dinner guest comments that your famous spinach soufflé looks like slime, you'll probably feel insulted. Like your spinach soufflé, slime is usually greenish in color, though the clear stuff a snail leaves behind is slime too. If you slime something, you cover it in a slimy substance. Experts believe that slime comes from the Old English lim, "sticky substance," which shares a root with the Russian slimak, or "snail."
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:
Uddin's photographs explore the miniature world of slime moulds, organisms that can be barely visible to the naked eye and whose fruiting structures are just one to two millimetres high.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
The sites are dubbed "pink slime" after the fluorescent pink meat paste used as an additive by food manufacturers.
From Barron's ● Sep. 28, 2026
“It’ll be slick as a car hood from the slime on their bellies,” Walters says.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
Parents who have watched their children cycle through different hobbies, whether it’s crafting friendship bracelets or concocting homemade slime, will recognize the single-minded fervor that has overtaken the students of Class 203.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
Gigantic stone blocks, green with ancient slime, rose higher into the mist than they could see.
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
To this day, many biological slimes haven’t been researched enough to know the details of their structure and behavior.
From Scientific American ● Jan. 28, 2023
Compared with naturally occurring slimes, artificial slime has no practical use.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 30, 2022
It's a pure troll, meant to be so beyond the pale that even responding to it slimes the person falsely accused.
From Salon ● Apr. 20, 2022
But those metabolic pathways would not have worked well in the Sun-soaked shallow waters in which the slimes lived.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 13, 2022
It seems that one of Ebola’s paths goes from the dead to the living, winding in trickles of uncoagulated blood and slimes that come out of the dead body.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
In his lead single for the album, the musician used a photo of Halle Berry being slimed at the Kids Choice Awards without her consent.
From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2023
Only to tyrannize behind the scenes and invariably whack others for his mistakes — coaches, general managers, executives by the score finding themselves slurred and slimed and used as human shields.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 4, 2022
Besides the virtual slime cannons in the end zones, there will be a slime booth at AT&T Stadium on Sunday where Prescott or Garoppolo can get slimed if they are so inclined.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 14, 2022
But I’m not sure why the same contemporary critics who slimed “Olympia” now get to have the definitive word on which Manets matter most.
From New York Times ● Aug. 1, 2019
Warmth slimed my palm and a fangy lurcher looked back up.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
There are close-ups of hands kneading dough, a snail sliming its way up a window and Cathy prodding a jellied fish with her finger.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 11, 2026
Mr. Parnell, a decorated Army veteran of the war in Afghanistan, has denied wrongdoing and called on his rival to quit the GOP primary race for sliming his family.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 9, 2021
But basic cable package viewers at home were immune to the smell, and the response from people who saw the sliming was overwhelmingly positive.
From The Verge ● Aug. 23, 2017
Holding him accountable for his lies takes guts and fortitude, especially when he’s proved adept at sliming right out of your grasp.
From Time ● Sep. 29, 2016
The beast’s green tongue rasped across her visor, sliming the lower section.
From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
