Crossword clues for slippery
slippery
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Slippery \Slip"per*y\, a. [See Slipper, a.]
Having the quality opposite to adhesiveness; allowing or causing anything to slip or move smoothly, rapidly, and easily upon the surface; smooth; glib; as, oily substances render things slippery.
-
Not affording firm ground for confidence; as, a slippery promise.
The slippery tops of human state.
--Cowley. -
Not easily held; liable or apt to slip away.
The slippery god will try to loose his hold.
--Dryden. Liable to slip; not standing firm.
--Shak.Unstable; changeable; mutable; uncertain; inconstant; fickle. ``The slippery state of kings.''
--Denham.Uncertain in effect.
--L'Estrange.-
Wanton; unchaste; loose in morals. --Shak. Slippery elm. (Bot.)
An American tree ( Ulmus fulva) with a mucilagenous and slightly aromatic inner bark which is sometimes used medicinally; also, the inner bark itself.
A malvaceous shrub ( Fremontia Californica); -- so called on the Pacific coast.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"having a slippery surface," c.1500, from Middle English sliper (adj.) "readily slipping," from Old English slipor "slippery, having a smooth surface" (see slip (v.)) + -y (2). Metaphoric sense of "deceitful, untrustworthy" is first recorded 1550s. Related: Slipperiness. In a figurative sense, slippery slope is first attested 1844. Slippery elm (1748) so called for its mucilaginous inner bark.
Wiktionary
a. 1 Of a surface, having low friction, often due to being covered in a non-viscous liquid, and therefore hard to grip, hard to stand on without falling, etc. 2 (context figuratively by extension English) evasive; difficult to pin down. 3 (context obsolete English) Liable to slip; not standing firm. 4 unstable; changeable; inconstant 5 (context obsolete English) wanton; unchaste; loose in morals
WordNet
adj. being such as to cause things to slip or slide; "slippery sidewalks"; "a slippery bar of soap"; "the streets are still slippy from the rain" [syn: slippy] [ant: nonslippery]
not to be trusted; "how extraordinarily slippery a liar the camera is"- James Agee; "they called Reagan the teflon president because mud never stuck to him" [syn: tricky, teflon]
Gazetteer
Wikipedia
Slippery may refer to:
- Slippery Rock Formation, a geologic formation in Jamaica
- Slippery Falls, a waterfall near Pelverata Falls, Tasmania
- Slippery hitch, a type of knot used to attach a line to a rod or bar
- Slippery the Sea Lion, who escaped in June 1958 from a marine mammal park in London, Ontario, Canada
- Paul, Estelle, Rory, Daniel and Edwin Slippery, a fictional family in the 2003 British television series Fortysomething, starring Hugh Laurie
- Operation Slippery, a planned deception in support of Operation Zipper, a British Second World War plan
Usage examples of "slippery".
His line was vanishing, deep water was to the left, slippery rocks underfoot, nose plugs bonking his forehead with every stride, and that indescribable, horrid oxygen smell was overpowering him.
Clerambault to play with more care, and choose a less slippery ground than logomachy, and on the other it brought him in contact with men better informed as to the facts who furnished him with the necessary information.
A shirtless child of three or four, clutching a half-eaten mangosteen in its slippery fist, was gazing at Amanda with the huge-eyed concentration of pure wonder.
But Marle was slippery, and Hawkeye over-cautious, for he had been warned to keep from sight at any cost.
He glides silently over the slippery mountains of its body, a metonymical terrain without end.
We were shot out indiscriminately into the trickery of the slippery, rampaging decade, and the best we could do was cover our eyes and ears and genitalia like pangolins or armadillos and make sure that our soft underbellies were not exposed for either inspection or slaughter.
All pollywogs were made to crawl through a long canvas tube about three feet in diameter into which had been thrown assorted slippery and evil-smelling refuse from the galley, while a double row of shelibacks wielded canvas straps against their vulnerable sterns.
Again there was the ecstatic greeting, Poly with her arms about the great, slippery beast, Macrina giving her marvelous, contagious dolphin smile, so that Adam felt that he was grinning like a fool.
Then the dolphin left Poly and swam over to Charles, nudging at him gently until he opened his eyes, rolled over in the water, and flung his arms around the great, slippery body.
Walking rapidly, as usual in boots, breeches and soutane, he strode up the rocky ramp to the Acropolis, through the frowning Propylon, past the Erechtheum, on up the incline with its slippery rough stones to the Parthenon, and.
With the previous examples before our eyes, it asks no vivid fancy to see in these quaternions once more the four winds, the bringers of rain, so swift and so slippery.
The rocks underneath his feet, some round, some angular, some flat, were slippery with the ooze of the earth fissures above and the refluent foam of the cascade.
Some simply lay down supine under a cask and let the wine pour directly from tap to mouth, with the result that the floor was soon sloshy and slippery.
When I had recovered, I could see that we were come to a halt, for in all that stupenduous chasm no sooner stay were possible, so sheer and slippery was it.
Slipped from the trammels of the world, surrounded by a bubble of noise and cloven slippery air, mundane reality fallen away, they were as eagles.