slimy

Etymology

It is formed from English slime + -y.^[2][3][4][5] Slime is from Old English slīm (“soft mud”),^[3][6] from Proto-Germanic *slīmaz.^[3][6][7] Similar adjectives were formed in other Germanic languages: slimich, now Dutch slijmig, and slîmic, now German schleimig.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Covered with or full of slime: 1377, in Langland's Piers Plowman.^[2][8] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The physical senses, "of the nature of slime" and "covered with slime", both appear in the late 14th century, the latter used especially of muddy rivers and shores.^[2][3] The figurative sense "morally vile, repulsive" is recorded from 1575, in a translation of Luther,^[2][3] and in slang the word has meant deceitful or underhand since at least 1866.^[9] Collins records a chiefly British sense, servile or fawning.^[10] In American campus slang of the 1980s slimy was also used of a very unattractive person.^[9]

Timeline

• 1377 – covered with slime.^[2]
• 1398 – of the consistency of slime; of rivers and shores, muddy.^[2]
• 1575 – morally vile, repulsive.^[2][3]
• 1778 – of ore, in the form of slime.^[2]
• 1866 – in slang, deceitful.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Covered with, containing or producing slime; viscous and slippery: slimy rocks at the water's edge.^[10][4][2]
2. Unpleasantly deceitful or dishonest; vile or offensive: a slimy salesman.^[10][4][9]
3. (chiefly British) Excessively servile or ingratiating.^[10]

Word family

• slimily
• sliminess

Related words

• slime
• lime

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins