slippery
Americanadjective
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tending or liable to cause slipping or sliding, as ice, oil, a wet surface, etc..
a slippery road.
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tending to slip from the hold or grasp or from position.
a slippery rope.
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likely to slip away or escape.
slippery prospects.
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not to be depended on; fickle; shifty, tricky, or deceitful.
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unstable or insecure, as conditions.
a slippery situation.
adjective
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causing or tending to cause objects to slip
a slippery road
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liable to slip from the grasp, a position, etc
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not to be relied upon; cunning and untrustworthy
a slippery character
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(esp of a situation) liable to change; unstable
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a course of action that will lead to disaster or failure
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of slippery
1525–35; alteration of slipper 2; compare Low German slipperig; see -y 1
Explanation
Slippery things are slimy or wet, or for some other reason cause you to slide on them. A slippery fish is hard to hold in your hand, and a slippery path is easy to slip on. You should drive slowly and cautiously when the road is slippery after it starts to sleet. And your hands may get slippery with sweat when you're nervous about a job interview. You can also use this adjective in a figurative way, to mean "tricky" or "unreliable," so you might complain about your slippery brother, who always manages to disappear right before it's time to take the trash out or load the dishwasher.
Vocabulary lists containing slippery
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:
Gauff drilled her footwork, working to optimize her explosive speed for a slippery surface where hard stops and aggressive sprinting can often backfire.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
The samples revealed a 100 foot thick layer of pelagic clay, an extremely soft, slippery sediment formed over millions of years as microscopic particles slowly settled to the seafloor.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 5, 2026
“It’s really a concern about a slippery slope. Do we start here with prescriptions, then all of a sudden, is it going to lead to diagnostic tests?” said John Whyte, chief executive of the AMA.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 18, 2026
Fix the Fells' partnership manager Isabel Berry said the route's "sloping, slippery surface is currently difficult to walk on" leading people to use the areas at either side.
From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2026
As he reached the frozen shore, he lunged forward headfirst, his belly making slippery contact with the flat, smooth ice.
From "The Very, Very Far North" by Dan Bar-el
Keep these traits in check the next time you find yourself in a horror film scenario: curiosity—the genre’s original sin—and dissatisfaction, its slipperier cousin.
From Salon ● Mar. 31, 2025
The iPhone SE is slightly taller, wider, and heavier than the Mini — not to mention slipperier with its rounded corners.
From The Verge ● Sep. 8, 2022
He also said the ice surface was slipperier than during visits on sunny days in previous years.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 6, 2022
He struggled to find consistent velocity with his pitches and quality grip with the MLB baseball, which had smaller seams and a slipperier cover.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 4, 2021
Faster, slipperier, she was sliding through the woods and then down to the lakeshore.
From "The Birchbark House" by Louise Erdrich
The new method proved exceptionally effective, as the team created the slipperiest liquid surface in the world.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 23, 2023
As he explains in his memoir, Ronnie was “a conman, fantasist, occasional jailbird, and my father. . . . Ronnie’s life was spent walking on the thinnest, slipperiest ice you can imagine.”
From Washington Post ● Dec. 14, 2020
East End Underworld by Raphael Samuel Published in 1981, this is the story of Arthur Harding, who was born in 1896 and became known as “the slipperiest character in Brick Lane”.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 7, 2019
Traditionally, one of the slipperiest things about talking to God is trying to tell someone else about it after the fact.
From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2018
Among the slipperiest of all is AIDS, which evolves new antigens even as it sits within an individual patient, thereby eventually overwhelming his or her immune system.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
