slosh
Americanverb (used without object)
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to splash or move through water, mud, or slush.
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(of a liquid) to move about actively within a container.
verb (used with object)
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to stir or splash (something) around in a fluid.
to slosh the mop in the pail.
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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.
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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.
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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
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have been sloshingperfect progressive
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has been sloshingperfect progressive
Past
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sloshedsimple
-
had sloshedperfect
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was sloshingprogressive
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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
He’s too protective of his fellow artist to slosh around in the fury that fueled her art.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 27, 2024
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
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
We dug through the snow and slosh for the sun to reach our little potato patch.
From "Between Shades of Gray" by Ruta Sepetys
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
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
She compared the way it sloshes around to a bucket full of very fine, very dry beach sand.
From New York Times ● Nov. 9, 2020
The “open” circulatory system of insects doesn’t have vessels like capillaries to direct the hemolymph; instead, the hemolymph sloshes through the body cavity and helps to distribute dissolved nutrients.
From Scientific American ● May 6, 2019
I can only watch as the monkey falls about twenty feet into the river, the impact creating a modest bloop in the blue-brown water that sloshes beneath the dock.
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
Serene spa music, a blend of classical piano and loudly chirping birds, trilled in the background as the machine sloshed and gurgled.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 6, 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
The team created a model that showed how, instead of dissipating, it sloshed back and forth for nine days.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2024
People on a bus lifted up their feet as water sloshed around the vehicle:
From Slate ● Sep. 29, 2023
The knight didn’t move, which helped Jack’s confidence a bit, so he sloshed his way over to the giant’s teeth, only stopping when the knight spoke.
From "Half Upon a Time" by James Riley
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
However, I can’t say that the steep cost of a Fire Island weekend hasn’t been one of the primary factors keeping me from boarding the ferry and sloshing around the Long Island Sound.
From Salon ● Jun. 18, 2026
An ocean of capital is sloshing into startups seeking to make AI computing more efficient.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 18, 2026
Japanese money, as Bessent said, is sloshing around the world.
From Barron's ● Jan. 26, 2026
Rupa stayed close behind him, and he could hear the milk sloshing in the pail.
From "Tiger Boy" by Mitali Perkins
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.
