Meaning

The skin shed by a snake or other reptile..

Definitions by Sense

1. The skin shed by a snake or other reptile.
2. Dead skin on a sore or ulcer.
3. (transitive) To shed skin or outer layers.
4. (intransitive) To slide off or flake off, as an outer layer, such as skin, might do.
5. (transitive, card games) To discard.
6. (intransitive, slang, Western US) To commit truancy, be absent from school without permission.
7. A marshy or muddy area.
8. (Northern US, Southern US) A type of swamp or shallow lake system, typically formed as or by the backwater of a larger waterway, similar to a bayou with trees.

Example Sentences

That is the slough of a rattler; we must be careful.

And without more ado she stood up and shook the white wrappings from her, and came forth shining and splendid like some glittering snake when she has cast her slough; ay, and fixed her wonderful eyes upon me - more deadly than any Basilisk's - and pierced me through and through with their beauty, and sent her light laugh ringing through the air like chimes of silver bells.

This is the slough that came off of his skin after the burn.

This skin is being sloughed.

Snakes slough their skin periodically.

When Harper came back into the infirmary of the Hyperion, Alec was laboriously trying to pull on his pants. His burned skin had healed over the intervening day, the damaged layer sloughed off and quickly replaced thanks to SAM’s efforts, but the buildup of waste products in Alec’s body from the accelerated healing had left him with sore muscles and achy joints.

A week after he was burned, a layer of skin on his arm sloughed off.

1944 United States. Bureau of Mines · War Minerals Report 386. Google books The adit penetrated the vug ... and at this level ... it was filled with material that had ... sloughed off the walls.

Word Forms

• sloughs
• sluff
• sloughing
• sloughed
• slue
• slew

Synonyms for slough

Related Words

When Should You Use Slough?

Use slough when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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