slough
noun
- a wetland, usually a swamp or shallow lake, often a backwater to a larger body of water
- a side-channel from or feeding a river, or an inlet or natural channel only sporadically filled with water
verb
- to throw off or discard
- shedding, remove in flaky chunks
noun
- dead snake skin
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /slaʊ/ / /sluː/ / /slʌf/ / /slɐf/ / /slʊf/
name
Etymology: From Middle English Slo, perhaps related to the noun slough (“marsh”) (referring to the land) or to sloe (referring to bushes).
- A town in east Berkshire, England (formerly Buckinghamshire), close to Heathrow Airport.
- A unitary authority and borough of Berkshire, the Slough Borough Council.
noun
Etymology: From Middle English slough (“muddy place; swamp; mire”), Old English slōh, probably from Proto-Germanic *slōhaz.
- A marshy or muddy area.
“"That comed - as you call it - of being arrant asses," retorted the doctor, "and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous slough.”
“Notwithstanding this discrepancy, however, and though, taught by experience, I hastened to agree with her that the secret of her birth was not likely to be discovered in a moment, nor by so simple a process as the journey to Norwich, which I had been going to suggest, it was natural that we should often revert to the subject, and to her pretensions, and the hardship of her lot: and my curiosity and questions giving a fillip to her memory, scarcely a day passed but she recovered some new detail from the past; as at one time a service of gold-plate which she perfectly remembered she had seen on her father's sideboard; and at another time an accident that had befell her in her childhood, through her father's coach and six horses being overturned in a slough.”
- 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.
“We paddled under a canopy of trees through the slough.”
“At that time I had no staff officer who could be trusted with that duty. In the woods, at a short distance below the clearing, I found a depression, dry at the time, but which at high water became a slough or bayou.”
- A secondary channel of a river delta, usually flushed by the tide.
“The Sacramento River Delta contains dozens of sloughs that are often used for water-skiing and fishing.”
- A state of depression.
“John is in a slough.”
- A small pond, often alkaline, many but not all formed by glacial potholes.
“Potholes or sloughs formed by a glacier’s retreat from the central plains of North America, are now known to be some of the world’s most productive ecosystems.”
verb
Etymology: From Middle English slogh, slugh, slouh, from Proto-Germanic *sluk-, perhaps related to *sleupaną (“to slip, sneak”) (compare Gothic 𐍃𐌻𐌹𐌿𐍀𐌰𐌽 (sliupan)). Akin to Middle Low German slô (“sheath, skin on a hoof”). Perhaps also related with Old Saxon slūk (“snakeskin”), Middle High German slūch, whence German Schlauch (“waterskin, hose”).
- To shed skin or outer layers.
“This skin is being sloughed.”
“Snakes slough their skin periodically.”
- To slide off or flake off, as an outer layer, such as skin, might do.
“A week after he was burned, a layer of skin on his arm sloughed off.”
“The mud sloughed off her palms easily […]”
- To discard.
“East sloughed a heart.”
- To commit truancy, be absent from school without permission.