sleek
1 Americanadjective
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smooth or glossy, as hair, an animal, etc.
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well-fed or well-groomed.
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trim and graceful; finely contoured; streamlined.
a sleek sports car.
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smooth in manners, speech, etc.; suave.
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cleverly or deceitfully skillful; slick.
a sleek confidence man.
verb (used with object)
adjective
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smooth and shiny; polished
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polished in speech or behaviour; unctuous
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(of an animal or bird) having a shiny healthy coat or feathers
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(of a person) having a prosperous appearance
verb
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to make smooth and glossy, as by grooming, etc
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(usually foll by over) to cover (up), as by making more agreeable; gloss (over)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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sleeksimple
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sleekssimple
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have sleekedperfect
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has sleekedperfect
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am sleekingprogressive
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are sleekingprogressive
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is sleekingprogressive
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have been sleekingperfect progressive
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has been sleekingperfect progressive
Past
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sleekedsimple
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had sleekedperfect
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was sleekingprogressive
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were sleekingprogressive
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had been sleekingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sleek1
First recorded in 1580–90; variant of slick
Origin of sleek2
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English sleken, variant of slick
Explanation
If your hair is sleek, it is smooth and glossy. If your car is sleek, it's shiny and looks like it goes fast. Sleek always means smooth, glossy, and streamlined. Sleek is a variant of the word, slick. When you slick back your hair with grease, it becomes sleek. Cats are often called sleek with their silky coats and lithe movements. A dress could be described as sleek, if it fits tightly to your body and makes you look polished and perfectly fit. When something is sleek, it's aerodynamic.
Vocabulary lists containing sleek
Mr. Popper’s Penguins
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"The Tragedy of Macbeth," Vocabulary from Act 3
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Rebound
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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:
Darren Walker, president of Anonymous Content, paid $4.2 million for a Paul Revere Williams-designed house in Los Angeles, filling it with sleek furnishings and a curated collection of Black art.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
But then Florida homeschoolers tried to enroll, so Helton transformed the business to also offer in-person teaching two days a week for homeschool students out of a sleek coworking space.
From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026
The sleek, futuristic-looking, white and yellow vehicle boasts solar panels on the roof that power its engine but also medical devices from x-ray machines to defibrillators.
From Barron's ● Jul. 21, 2026
They attempt to give their products sleek designs, offered in a range of colours that can be matched to outfits or other accessories.
From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026
And unit 4 was hidden beneath a sleek gray-and-white frame, built to unload fuel from its storage pools.
From "Meltdown" by Deirdre Langeland
South Korean technology giant Samsung unveiled new, sleeker smartphone models Wednesday priced more than previous models as artificial intelligence raises component costs.
From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026
Also: The latest Oura and Fitbit wearables are smarter and sleeker than ever — but do they keep you healthy?
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 27, 2026
Today’s office chairs use new materials and sleeker designs, but the promise of “an easy rested look” never grows old.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 15, 2025
But that appears to be changing with the likes of Optimus and sleeker droids which edge us closer to living in an uncanny valley.
From BBC ● Nov. 7, 2025
With all the milk they were getting, the children began to grow larger and sleeker, and their skin shone with good health.
From "The Girl Who Married a Lion: and Other Tales from Africa" by Alexander Mccall Smith
John Dowie was described in accounts as "the sleekest and kindest of landlords".
From BBC ● Nov. 30, 2024
Amazon has designed the sleekest, most efficient consumer gratification interface ever devised: just a click on a screen or a command to Alexa and an item arrives.
From The Verge ● Nov. 14, 2019
The sleekest piece is Lorenzo Cardim’s wall-mounted array of curved, partly meshed wooden slices.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 28, 2018
Browning whipped up this year's edition of the annual tour of figure skating and ice-dancing champs into one of the sleekest, smoothest shows in years for the franchise.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 27, 2012
The honors of his ebon poll Were brighter than the sleekest mole; His bosom of the hue With which Aurora decks the skies, When piping winds shall soon arise To sweep away the dew.
From The Home Book of Verse — Volume 4 by Stevenson, Burton Egbert
A final finishing dollop of aioli swirled into the al dente rice sleeks it with satiny richness.
From New York Times ● Dec. 19, 2019
His eye burns deep, his tail is arched, And streams upon the shadowy air, The daylight sleeks his jetty flanks, His mistress' hair.
From Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes Volume II. by De la Mare, Walter
Vanity is to a man what the oily secretion is to a bird, with which it sleeks and adjusts the plumage ruffled by whatever causes.
From Dreamthorp A Book of Essays Written in the Country by Smith, Alexander
Through the grass and the flowers came the evil trail, turning from time to time its head to its back, licking like a beast that sleeks itself.
From Divine Comedy, Norton's Translation, Purgatory by Norton, Charles Eliot
The true adjective clause is “sleeking ... locks” = with which she sleeks, etc.; and the true participial clause is “she sits ... rocks” = seated on ... rocks.
From Milton's Comus by Bell, William
Takisha Sturdivant-Drew sleeked Kerry Washington’s coat; and Amy Adams, Naomi Campbell, and Heidi Klum, who was coiffed by Andy Lecompte, joined her with forays into flattening.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 9, 2017
From western ranges, where the feed is scanty, cattle are moving by the hungry thousands to corn-rich Missouri, Iowa and eastern Kansas, there to be stuffed and sleeked for market.
From Time Magazine Archive
He sleeked his hair, put on spats, became meticulous about his clothes.
From Time Magazine Archive
He had a kindly blue eye, a merry thick-lipped mouth, and blonde hair sleeked back across his crown, one lock, detached from the rest, falling over his forehead.
From Treasure and Trouble Therewith A Tale of California by Bonner, Geraldine
He knew how to turn his crimson suit into the most perfect of water-proof coats; so he flattened his crest, sleeked his feathers, and breasting the April downpour, kept on calling for rain.
From The Song of the Cardinal by Stratton-Porter, Gene
Anointed with the sleeking oil there strive our fellows stripped In wrestling game of fatherland: it joys us to have slipped By such a host of Argive towns amidmost of the foe.
From The Æneids of Virgil Done into English Verse by Morris, William
There he stood at the door sleeking his hair with old country habit, and every now and then stealing a glance round at the splendour of the apartment.
From Mary Barton by Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
But the Midden was now rocking and floating on the shadowy water, her bright hair sleeking the stream behind her.
From The Three Mulla-mulgars by De la Mare, Walter
It began sleeking its long, yellow hair, which fell over its shoulders; its eyes were not turned toward me, but to the door; it seemed listening, watching, waiting.
From The Lock and Key Library Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Old Time English by Hawthorne, Julian
At the risk of her life she dragged him across to the entrance, and sat desolately crumbling away between her fingers such feathers as were singed upon him, and sleeking his long gasping neck.
From The Lady of Fort St. John by Catherwood, Mary Hartwell
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.
