sludgy (sluji)

[ The warm, copious rain falling on the snow was at first absorbed and held back,... until the whole ma of snow was saturated and became sludgy . The Century , XL. 499. sluel (slö), v.; pret. and pp. slued, ppr. sluing. [Also slew; cf. E. dial. sluer, slewer, give way, fall down, slide down; perhaps for * snue, They laughed and slued themselves round. For all the words that came from gullets, If long, were slugs ; if short ones, bullets. Cotton, Burlesque, Upon the Great Frost. I took four muskets, and loaded them with two slugs and five small bullets each. Defoe , Robinson Crusoe, xvi. Hence-(b) Any projectile of irregular shape, as one of the pieces constituting mitraille. (c) A thick blank of type metal made to separate lines of print and to show a line of white space; also, such a piece with a number or word, to be used temporarily as a direction or marking for any purpose, as in newspaper composing-rooms the distinctive number placed at the beginning of a compositor's "take," to mark it as his work. Thin blanks are known as leads . All blanks thicker than one sixteenth of an inch are known as slugs, and are called by the names of their proper type bodies: as, nonpareil slugs; pica slugs. (d) In motal., a ma of partially roasted ore. (e) A lump of lead or other heavy metal carried in the hand by ruffians as a weapon of attack. It is sometimes attached to the wrist by a cord or thong: in that case it is called a slung -shot. [Vulgar.] (f) A hatters' heating-iron. E. H. Knight. (g) A gold coin of the value of fifty dollars, privately i ued in San Francisco during the mining excitement of 1849. Round slugs were very rare, the octagonal or hexagonal form being usual. An interesting reminder of early days in California, in the shape of a round fifty-dollar slug. But fifty of these round fifty-dollar pieces were i ued when orders came from the East prohibiting private coinage. San Francisco Bulletin , May 10, 1890. 2. A stunted horn. Compare scur2. The late Sir B. T. Brandreth Gibbs,... in the "Short Introductory Notes on Some of the Principal Breeds of says: "Occasionally some Cattle, Sheep, and Pigs,". have small slugs or stumps, which are not affixed to the skull." Dr. Fleming, 1812, wrote similarly about the existence of these " slugs " then, and is quoted by BoydDawkins as evidence of the last appearances in this ancient breed of a reminiscence of its former character. Amer . Nat ., XXII. 794. slug4 (slug), v.; pret. and pp. slugged, ppr. slug ging. [ slug4, n.] I. trans. To load with a slug or slugs, as a gun. [Rare.] men to waake in the worlde. Political Poems , etc. (ed. Furnivall), p. 32. Thou drone, thou snail, thou slug , thou sot! Shak ., C. of E., ii. 2. 196. Hence-2. Any slow-moving thing. Thus hath Independency, as a little but tite Pinnace, in a short time got the wind of and given a broad-side to Presbytery; which soon grew a slug , when once the North wind ceased to fill its sailes. Bp . Gauden, Tears of the Church, p. 381. His rendezvous for his fleete and for all sluggs to come to should be between Calais and Dover. Pepys , Diary, Oct. 17, 1666. A slug must be kept going, and an impetuous one [horse] restrained. Encyc. Brit ., XII. 199. 3t. A hindrance; an obstruction. Usury... doth dull and damp all industries, improvements, and new inventions, wherein money would be stirring, if it were not for this slug . Bacon , Usury (ed. 1887). slug2 (slug), n. [Prob. a particular use of slug1, n .] 1. A terrestrial pulmonate gastropod of one of the families Limacidæ and Arionidæ and related ones, which has only a rudimentary shell, if any. The species inhabit all the northern temperate regions of the globe, living on the land, and chiefly about decaying wood in forests, gardens, and damp places. Marine nudibranchiate gastropods are called sea- slugs. See sea- slug, and cut under Limacidæ. Slugs, pinch'd with hunger, smear'd the slimy wall. Church ill, Prophecy of Famine. 2. Some or any slug-like soft-bodied insect or its larva; a grub: as, the yellow-spotted willow- slug, the larva of a saw-fly, Nematus ven tralis. See pear - slug, rose - slug, slug - caterpillar, slug- worm. 3. The trepang or sea-cucumber; any edible holothurian; a sea-slug. Burrowing slugs, the Test a cel lidæ. - Giant slug, Ariolimax colum bianus. It affords a thick tenacious slime, which is used by the Indians to lime humming-birds. [California to Alaska.]- Oceanic slugs, the Phyllirhoidæ. See cut under Phyllirhoe. - Rough slugs, slugs of the family Onchi diida. Teneriffe slug, a slug of the genus Phosphorax, II. in trans. In gun ., to a ume the sectional shape of the bore when fired: said of a bullet slightly larger than the bore.