slouch (slouch)

[Early mod. E. also slowch; earlier, without a ibilation, slouke, * sloke, A Slouke , iners, ertis, ignarus. Levins, Manip. Vocab. (E. E. T. S.), col. 217. Slowch , a lazy lubber, who has nothing tight about him, with his stockings about his heels, his clothes unbutton'd, and his hat flapping about his ears. MS . Glo . (Hall i well.) I think the idle slouch Be fallen asleep in the barn, he stays so long. B. Jonson, Tale of a Tub, iv. 5. 2. A drooping or depre ion of the head or of some other part of the body; a stoop; an ungainly, clownish gait. Our doctor has every quality which can make a man use IMG:content-1325.png:[blocks in formation] slue, slew, sloo; Bote yf the sed that sowen is in the sloh sterue, Shal neuere spir springen vp. Piers Plowman (C), xiii. 179. So soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one of them, in a slough of mire. Shak., M. W. of W., iv. 5. 69. This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended; it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough of Despond. Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progre , i. To the centre of its pulpy gorge the greedy slough was heaving, and sullenly grinding its weltering jaws among the flags and the sedges. R. D. Black more , Lorna Doone, lxxv. 2 (slö). A marshy hollow; a reedy pond; also, a long shallow ravine, or open creek, which becomes partly or wholly dry in summer. [Western U. S.] The prairie round about is wet, at times almost marshy, especially at the borders of the great reedy slews . These pools and slews are favorite breeding-places for water-fowl. T. Roosevelt, Hunting Trips, p. 54. Syn. Swamp, etc. See marsh. slough2 (sluf), n. [Sc. sloch ; slouh , slow , slug he, slohe, slouze (also, later, slougth ), skin of a snake; cf. Sw. dial. slug = Norw. slo = MHG. sluch , a skin, snake-skin, G. schlauch , a skin, bag; appar. connected with LG. sluken = OHG. *slucchon, MHG. slucken, G. schlucken = Sw. sluka = Dan. sluge , swallow: see slough1 . These words are connected by some with Sw. dial. sluv , a covering, = LG. slu , sluwe , a husk, covering, the pod of a bean or pea, husk of a nut, = MD. sloove , a veil, a skin, slooven , cover one's head, = G. dial. schlaube , a shell, husk, slough, akin to E. sleeve : see sleeve1 .] 1. The skin of a serpent, usually the cast skin; also, any part of an animal that is naturally shed or molted; a cast; an exuvium. The snake roll'd in a flowering bank, With shining checker'd slough. Shak., 2 Hen. VI., iii. 1. 229. IMG:content-1326.png:[blocks in formation] 3. A depre ion or hanging down; a droop: as, his hat had a slouch over his eyes. - 4. A slouch hat. [Colloq.]-5. An inefficient or usele person or thing: usually with a negative, in praise: as, he's no slouch; it's no slouch, I tell you. [Slang.]