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:
Knowing this documentary exists — that a slippery figure like Fielder is going toe-to-toe with the equally shifty Holmes — is its own “spoiler.”
From Salon ● Oct. 25, 2026
The movie leaves you with many questions — about Holmes, about the slippery nature of truth and about the objectivity of documentary filmmaking itself.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2026
The births follow the zoo's success last November in breeding the Atewa slippery frog, another critically endangered species from the same forest, which had also never been bred in captivity before.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
“You are a slippery thinker,” Cliffe tells a young man in an April video.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026
He was so slippery, so worthless, that my anger died.
From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya
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
Osunde will soon illustrate its slipperier connotations, which touch both the marginalized and the powerful — albeit differently of course.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2022
Ma was growing heavier and slipperier, and my arms were aching from holding on to her.
From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo
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
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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.
