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Etymology and origin of the English word slough

slough1 mire, bog

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
800s before 899, the Old English translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History
Inherited from
Old English sloh via Middle English

Pronunciation

  • /slaʊ/, /sluː/[1]

Etymology

The word for a muddy place is inherited from Middle English slogh, also slough and slo,[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English slōh (“soft, muddy ground; a hollow full of mire”), also slōg and slō.[6][7][8] Its origin is uncertain or unknown.[6][9][10][11][5] Etymonline, Barnhart and Dictionary.com compare Middle Low German slōch (“muddy place”) and Middle High German sluoche (“ditch”),[9][4][12] while Collins and Holthausen compare Swedish slaga (“swamp”).[13][8] Barnhart reconstructs Proto-Germanic *slōhaz, which he relates to Lithuanian šlakas (“drop, spot”).[4] The OED suggests a connection with slonk,[6] and Weekley one with German schlingen (“to swallow”).[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

A piece of soft, muddy ground, a hole full of mire: Old English, first in the translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History,[6][4] which Barnhart dates before 899.[4] Barnhart also finds it in the place name Polslewe (1159) and as the surname Slough (1273).[4]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word also meant the mud or mire itself, from before 1225,[6][15] and about 1250, in The Owl and the Nightingale, it was used figuratively of a state of moral degradation into which a person sinks.[6][4][9] Chaucer used it three times, and Gower once.[16] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a deep miry place; a hole full of dirt".[17] Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678) named the Slough of Despond, a bog from which Christian cannot get out because of the burden of sin on his back;[4][9][18] from 1776 slough of despond was used for a state of deep dejection.[4][6] In North America, from 1714, the word was used for a marshy hollow or a sluggish side channel of a river, also spelled slew or slue and pronounced to rhyme with blue.[6][3][13] In 19th-century American slang to slough meant to lock up in prison, from 1848.[6][19] In Derbyshire and Essex dialect a slough was a puddle in the road, and in Renfrewshire a deep ravine.[20]

Timeline

  • before 899 – a piece of soft, muddy ground.[4][6]
  • 1159 – in the place name Polslewe.[4]
  • before 1225 – mud, mire (now obsolete).[6]
  • c. 1250 – figurative, a state of degradation.[6][4]
  • 1532 – a ditch or drain (obsolete).[6][15]
  • 1678 – the Slough of Despond, in Bunyan.[9][4]
  • 1714 – in North America, a marshy hollow, a side channel of a river.[6]
  • 1848 – verb, slang, to lock up in prison.[6][19]
  • 1861 – verb, to be swallowed up in a slough.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A hollow or place of deep mud; a mire or bog: The truck sank to its axles in a slough.[13][3][6]
  2. (North American) A marshy place or swamp; a sluggish side channel of a river, or a prairie hollow that fills with water.[13][3][6]
  3. A state of despair or degradation, as in slough of despond.[13][6][15]
  4. (obsolete) A ditch or drain.[6][15]

Verb

  1. To sink or be swallowed up in a slough.[3][6][15]
  2. (slang) To imprison or lock up; usually in the passive, with in or up.[3][6][19]

Word family

  • sloughy
  • slough of despond

slough2 cast-off skin

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1300 before 1300, Cursor Mundi
Inherited from
Middle English slughe

Pronunciation

Etymology

The word for a cast-off skin is inherited from Middle English slughe, also slouh,[9][3][5][12] of uncertain origin.[6][15][11] It is perhaps related to Low German sluwe (“husk, peel, shell”),[6][15] and probably or possibly to Middle Low German slū (“husk, peel, skin”),[9][4][2] Middle High German slūch (“snakeskin, wineskin”),[9][4][3][5] Old Saxon slūk (“skin of a snake”) and German Schlauch (“wineskin, hose”).[9][5][21] Etymonline and Barnhart trace these to Proto-Germanic *sluk-,[9][4] and Köbler connects that with a verb "to creep, slip".[22] Etymonline, Barnhart and Klein compare Proto-Indo-European *sleug- (“to glide”), with Lithuanian šliaužti (“to creep, crawl”) and Dutch sluiken (“to smuggle, sneak”).[9][4][5][3] The verb is formed from the noun.[6][9][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The outer skin cast off by a snake or similar animal: before 1300, in the Cursor Mundi,[6] before 1325 in Barnhart.[4]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word was also a skin or membrane covering the body, from before 1400;[6][2] in Gavin Douglas, in the early 16th century, it became the layer of dead tissue that forms on a wound or sore.[6][9][15] A figurative sense, a feature or habit that is thrown off, followed in 1583,[6] and the skin a caterpillar or insect casts during its transformation in 1681.[6][15] Walter Scott used it for clothing in 1808.[6] The verb began in medicine: from 1720 it was said of diseased skin or tissue that comes away,[6][9][3] and by 1762 it meant to throw off by forming a slough.[6][9] It was used of a snake shedding its skin, and figuratively of casting off or discarding anything, often with off, from 1845.[6][15] In northern and Scottish dialect, where it was also written sluf or sluff, a slough was a husk, especially the skin of a gooseberry or currant.[20][6]

Timeline

  • before 1300 – the cast-off skin of a snake.[6]
  • before 1400 – a skin or membrane covering the body.[6]
  • 1513 – a layer of dead tissue on a wound or sore.[6]
  • 1583 – figurative, something thrown off.[6]
  • c. 1660 – in dialect, the husk or skin of a fruit.[6]
  • 1681 – the cast skin of an insect.[6][15]
  • 1720 – verb, of diseased skin or tissue, to come away.[6][9][3]
  • 1762 – verb, transitive, to throw off by forming a slough.[6][9]
  • 1845 – verb, of a snake, to shed its skin; figuratively, to discard.[6]
  • 1897 – verb, of soil or rock, to slide down into a hollow.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The skin shed by a snake or another animal that molts; the cast-off skin.[13][3][6]
  2. A mass or layer of dead tissue separating from a wound or ulcer.[13][3][6]
  3. Something that is or may be cast off.[3][6][15]

Verb

  1. Of skin or tissue, to come away or be shed: The burnt skin sloughed in patches.[3][6][15]
  2. To shed or cast off a skin: The lizard had sloughed its skin overnight.[3][6][13]
  3. To discard or get rid of something; often with off: He sloughed off his old habits.[6][15][13]
  4. Of soil or rock, to fall away or slide down into a hole or hollow.[6][15]

Word family

  • unsloughed
  • unsloughing
  • slough off

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  8. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  18. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  19. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  20. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  21. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  22. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling

Related etymologies

  • careful · also from Old English
  • load · also from Old English
  • kiss · also from Old English
  • lane · also from Old English
  • cheese · also from Old English
  • afford · also from Old English
  • plot · also from Old English
  • heaven · also from Old English
Cite this entry

“Slough.” Etymologically, 2 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/slough. Accessed 2 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·