sliver, to slice off. Macbeth, iv. 1. 28. In prov. use: ‘If you sliver away at the meat like that there’ll be none left for to-morrow’ (Cambridge); see EDD.
sloape, deceitful; ‘For hope is sloape’, Mirror for Mag., Ferrex, st. 18. ‘Slope’ (or ‘sloap’) is in prov. use in Yorks., meaning to trick, cheat (EDD.).
slot, the track of a stag or deer upon the ground. B. Jonson, Sad Shepherd, i. 2 (John); to follow a track, Stanyhurst, tr. Aeneid, i. 191. OF. esclot, hoof-print of a horse, &c. (Godefroy), probably of Scand. origin, cp. Icel. slōð, a track; so NED.
†sloy, a term of abuse for a woman. Warner, Alb. England, bk. xi, ch. 58, st. 26. Not found elsewhere.
slubber, to sully, Othello, i. 3. 227; to obscure, 1 Part of Jeronimo, ii. 4. 67; see Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 374. In prov. use for obscuring with dirt (EDD.).
slubberdegullion, a slubbering rascal (Burlesque). Beaumont and Fl., Custom of the Country, i. 2. 18; Butler, Hud. i. 3. 886.
sludge, to turn into a soft mass, ‘The flame had sludgd the pitche, the waxe and wood And other things that nourish fire’, Golding, Metam. xiv. 532.
slug, to be lazy, inactive. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 1. 23; slogge, Palsgrave; ‘Another sleeps and slugs both night and day’, Quarles, Emblems (bk. i. 8, Luke vi. 25). ME. sluggyn, ‘desidio’ (Prompt.).
slug, a slow, inactive person; ‘Fie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not’, Richard III, iii. 1. 22; slugge, a hindrance, ‘Money would be stirring, if it were not for this slugge’, Bacon, Essay 41, § 2. ‘Slug’ is in prov. use in the north country for a slow inactive person or animal; in Somerset, esp. of a slow-going horse; ‘to slug’ in Yorks. means to hinder, to retard progress (EDD.). ME. slugge, ‘deses, segnis’ (Prompt.).
slur, a method of cheating at dice; ‘Without some fingering trick or slur’, Butler, Misc. Thoughts (ed. Bell, iii. 176). Also, a term in card-playing, ‘ ’Gainst high and low, and slur, and knap’, Butler, Upon Gaming. See NED. (s.v. Slur, sb.2 2).