slosh
Americanverb (used without object)
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sloshes,
present (3rd person singular)
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sloshed,
past participle, past
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sloshing
present participle
-
to splash or move through water, mud, or slush.
-
(of a liquid) to move about actively within a container.
verb (used with object)
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sloshes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
sloshed,
past participle, past
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sloshing
present participle
-
to stir or splash (something) around in a fluid.
to slosh the mop in the pail.
-
to splash (liquid) clumsily or haphazardly.
She sloshed tea all over her new suit. They sloshed the paint over the wall.
noun
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watery mire or partly melted snow; slush.
-
the lap or splash of liquid.
the slosh of waves against the shore.
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a small quantity of liquid.
a slosh of milk in the pail.
-
a watery or weak drink.
noun
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watery mud, snow, etc
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slang a heavy blow
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the sound of splashing liquid
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a popular dance with a traditional routine of steps, kicks, and turns performed in lines
verb
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informal (tr; foll by around, on, in, etc) to throw or pour (liquid)
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informal
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to shake or stir (something) in a liquid
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(of a person) to splash (around) in water, etc
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slang (tr) to deal a heavy blow to
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informal to shake (a container of liquid) or (of liquid within a container) to be shaken
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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sloshsimple
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sloshessimple
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have sloshedperfect
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has sloshedperfect
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am sloshingprogressive
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are sloshingprogressive
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is sloshingprogressive
-
have been sloshingperfect progressive
-
has been sloshingperfect progressive
Past
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sloshedsimple
-
had sloshedperfect
-
was sloshingprogressive
-
were sloshingprogressive
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had been sloshingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of slosh
Explanation
When liquid things slosh, they move with a splash. If you stumble as you're carrying a cup of coffee to the table, your coffee may slosh over the edge of the cup. Only something that's wet can slosh — water might slosh around in the bottom of a leaky rowboat, and soapsuds can slosh in a bathtub when a happy kid gets in. You can slosh tea into a mug, or slosh through puddles in your rain boots. The 1800's meaning of slosh was "slush or sludge," and the Middle English definition was "muddy place," probably from a combination of slush and slop.
Vocabulary lists containing slosh
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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:
As billions of dollars slosh through Division 1 programs, parents are pouring money into their children’s athletic careers with an intensity unimaginable a decade ago.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 28, 2026
Even worse, because these chemicals don’t decompose, they simply slosh around, moving from our stuff to our bodies to the soil and the water—and back again.
From Slate ● Apr. 18, 2024
Randall Gibbs, another resident of the Sun Valley village, agreed, even as he talked about hearing waves slosh against the metal exterior of the tiny home he shares with another man and two dogs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 18, 2024
The new images reveal how heat can move like a wave, and "slosh" back and forth, even as a material's physical matter may move in an entirely different way.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 8, 2024
Stored in a compartment that originally had no leftover space, the now-compressed sludge had room to slosh.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
Scientists believe hydrothermal water vents blast the core’s heat upward, thawing an expansive ocean that sloshes roughly 15 miles below the moon’s icy crust — far deeper than humans have ever dug on Earth.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2024
Venturing into space offers “the illusion of expansion” into a limitless cosmos, whereas our ocean sloshes across a planet we feel we've already conquered.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 20, 2023
Nonacidic reflux, or contents in your gut that have been neutralized, frequently sloshes around and hits your esophagus, too.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 27, 2023
The Golden Globe Awards telecast, which sloshes money through the entertainment economy, will return in January with an even bigger platform.
From New York Times ● Sep. 20, 2022
Again Frederick sloshes it onto the ice at his feet.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
On a beach in southern Romania, a few metres from the Danube shore, a boy sloshed his bare feet through water that only reached up to his ankles.
From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026
Museums spent the past few years sinking resources into outsmarting climate-change activists who sloshed tomato soup, cake icing and other foodstuffs all over iconic masterpieces to get attention.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
Water sloshed in a swimming pool, another person said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 9, 2024
The team created a model that showed how, instead of dissipating, it sloshed back and forth for nine days.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2024
Footsteps sloshed toward him steadily through a puddle, and he feared it would be another barefoot child.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
Roll or shake the tire, and you are likely to succeed only in sloshing out some of the water.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2026
A sizable amount of that cash is going to overseas suppliers of chips and memory, but large sums are also sloshing around the U.S. economy as stimulus.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 17, 2026
Instead of sloshing cream into a hot skillet and hoping for the best, we are going to build a sauce with posture.
From Salon ● Apr. 7, 2026
Then money came sloshing right back into the fund, shrinking SpaceX’s share of the portfolio to 28.3%.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026
And Cha-Cha, the water dog, bustled over carrying a sloshing bucket in her mouth.
From "Dog Squad" by Chris Grabenstein
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.
