slither
verbEtymology
From Middle English slitheren, alteration of slideren (“to slither, creep”), from Old English slidrian (“to slip, slide, slither”), from Proto-West Germanic *slidrōn (“to slide, slither”), from Proto-Indo-European *sleydʰ- (“to slip”), equivalent to slide + -er (frequentative suffix). Cognate with Dutch slidderen (“to slip, wriggle, slither”), German schlittern (“to slither, skid”). More at slide.
Definitions
To move about smoothly and from side to side.
- [Indiana:] Wave it at anything that slithers. [Marion:] The whole place is slithering!
To slide.
- Some snow slides recorded have exceeded a million tons and slithered down the mountain-side at a speed of 60 miles an hour.
- I bent down and with both hands I scooped up as much of this pissshit as I could. The green and brown clump felt like Jello as it dripped down all over my clothes. It was slithering through inbetween^([sic]) my fingers.
Slithery
Slithery; slippery.
›+ 2 more definitionsshow fewer
A limestone rubble.
A sliver.
The neighborhood
- neighborsliver
Derived
aslither, slitherer, slitherlink, slithersome, slithery, Slytherin
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for slither. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA