slope

American  

[slohp] / sloʊp /

verb (used without object)

slopes, present (3rd person singular) sloped, past participle, past sloping present participle

1. to have or take an inclined or oblique direction or angle considered with reference to a vertical or horizontal plane; slant.

2. to move at an inclination or obliquely.

   They sloped gradually westward.

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verb (used with object)

slopes, present (3rd person singular) sloped, past participle, past sloping present participle

1. to direct at a slant or inclination; incline from the horizontal or vertical.

   The sun sloped its beams.

2. to form with a slope or slant.

   to slope an embankment.

noun

slopes plural

1. ground that has a natural incline, as the side of a hill.

2. inclination or slant, especially downward or upward.

3. deviation from the horizontal or vertical.

4. an inclined surface.

5. Usually slopes. hills, especially foothills or bluffs.

   the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

6. Mathematics.

   1. the tangent of the angle between a given straight line and the x- axis of a system of Cartesian coordinates.

   2. the derivative of the function whose graph is a given curve evaluated at a designated point.

7. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. a contemptuous term used to refer to a person of East Asian origin, especially a Vietnamese or other South Asian.

idioms

1. slope off, to make one's way out slowly or furtively.

slope British  

/ sləʊp /

verb

1. to lie or cause to lie at a slanting or oblique angle

2. (intr) (esp of natural features) to follow an inclined course

   many paths sloped down the hillside

3. (intr; foll by off, away, etc) to go furtively

4. (tr) military (formerly) to hold (a rifle) in the slope position (esp in the command slope arms )

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noun

1. an inclined portion of ground

2. (plural) hills or foothills

3. any inclined surface or line

4. the degree or amount of such inclination

5. maths

   1. (of a line) the tangent of the angle between the line and another line parallel to the x- axis

   2. the first derivative of the equation of a curve at a given point

6. (formerly) the position adopted for British military drill when the rifle is rested on the shoulder

7. slang a person from Southeast Asia, especially a Vietnamese

Sensitive Note

See slant-eyed.

Usage

What does slope mean? In mathematics, the slope (also called the gradient) of a line is a measurement of how steep the line is or how much of a slant it has. In math, a line is an object with no thickness that extends forever in both directions. In basic math, we assume lines to be perfectly straight, meaning they don’t curve or change directions to form angles. Take a piece of graph paper to create a Cartesian plane by drawing two perpendicular lines. These two lines are called the axes. The axis going sideways is the x-axis, and the axis going up and down is the y-axis. We use these axes to label where any point on the plane is located. You can then measure the slope of a line compared to the x-axis by using the Cartesian coordinates on your Cartesian plane.

Synonym Usage

Slope, slant mean to incline away from a relatively straight surface or line used as a reference. To slope is to incline vertically in an oblique direction: The ground slopes ( upward or downward ) sharply here. To slant is to fall to one side, to lie obliquely to some line whether horizontal or perpendicular: The road slants off to the right.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• sloper
  noun
• slopingness
  noun
• sloping
  adjective
• unsloped
  adjective
• unsloping
  adjective
• slopingly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• slopes
  plural

Participles

• sloping
  present
• sloped
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• slope
  simple
• slopes
  simple
• have sloped
  perfect
• has sloped
  perfect
• am sloping
  progressive
• are sloping
  progressive
• is sloping
  progressive
• have been sloping
  perfect progressive
• has been sloping
  perfect progressive

Past

• sloped
  simple
• had sloped
  perfect
• was sloping
  progressive
• were sloping
  progressive
• had been sloping
  perfect progressive

Future

• will slope
  simple
• will have sloped
  perfect
• will be sloping
  progressive
• will have been sloping
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of slope

First recorded in 1495–1505; aphetic variant of aslope; akin to slip ¹

Explanation

If you find yourself on a slippery slope, watch out: you could be sliding down a hill. Land that is not level is called a slope. Slope can also be a verb, as in land that slopes down to sea level. Language experts believe the word slope came from the Middle English word aslope, an adverb that means “at an angle.” The word has a noun form you can use for something that is at an angle — on a slope — like a steep hill or the ramp in a parking garage. It also has a verb form that can be used to describe something that slants, like someone's signature with letters that slope to the left or an angled haircut that slopes to cover one eye.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

slope slopes sloped sloping

One was seen near a seamount close to Jarvis Island, while the other was recorded along the slope of the Tonga Trench.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 8, 2026

When children’s mental health and cognitive development are at risk, implying that screens can be good in some circumstances is a slippery slope toward a worse future.

From Salon ● Jun. 21, 2026

Even when SPX pulled back, the term structures of the VIX futures and of the Cboe Volatility Indices continue to slope upwards.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 18, 2026

Notably, the slope of the 200-day simple moving average turned higher in January, signaling a potential shift in longer-term trend momentum.

From Barron's ● Jun. 17, 2026

The ground doesn’t slope down enough for it to be a basement.

From "Fast Pitch" by Nic Stone

Loose rock and debris shifted down slopes, reshaping parts of the surface and contributing to the softened appearance of many craters visible in Lucy's images.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 25, 2026

His farm in a meadow close by the village of Sofiytsi in southern Bulgaria backs onto the wooded slopes of the mountain range associated with the mythological musician Orpheus.

From Barron's ● Jun. 25, 2026

Be careful on those slopes and many happy returns for your wedding.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 9, 2026

In the most recent efforts, Caltrans said, it used drones to help survey the slopes and remotely operated bulldozers and excavators to reduce risks to workers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2026

Down the mountain slopes it lay, spread before them with its green fields, its orchards, its forests, its rivers and lakes, where white sails drifted.

From "The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge" by M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin

The vineyard for the domaine’s namesake wine is in the village of Vosne-Romanée, where vines grow on a gently sloped plot of less than 5 acres.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026

Now that his youngest son had moved out, the 56-year-old retired home builder wanted to downsize from his 6-acre, sloped property to a 2,200 square-foot house in Hayden, Idaho, which he had built himself.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 20, 2025

Take a sunset walk along the gently sloped, flower-scented streets above busy Sunset Boulevard in Brentwood — you will be immersed in a stillness broken only by birds chirping in the treetops.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2025

And the head of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, said that their own agents weren’t on that roof because it was sloped and therefore dangerous, which is a strange response.

From Slate ● Jul. 24, 2024

I noticed the way the roofs all sloped at the same angle on one street, then shifted to a different angle on the next.

From "The Rock and the River" by Kekla Magoon

It was hard to run balls on to the greens because of the sticky approaches, but the sloping putting surfaces were often too firm to hold.

From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2026

Both term structures are sloping upwards, and the VIX futures are trading with a large premium to VIX.

From MarketWatch ● May 28, 2026

A fastback design calls for a roughly diagonal profile and backlight glass sloping from the trailing edge of the roofline to the deck lid, a feature nowhere in sight.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 23, 2026

Foiling the visual expectations of a lifetime, the four-door’s glass roof joins the car’s sloping rear deck just over the rear axle, omitting a transparent panel of any kind.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 25, 2026

Where they had been grassy and sloping away gradually, the banks were steeper and cut away, exposing the dirt and mud.

From "The River" by Gary Paulsen

Related Words

• hill
• ramp
• shelf