3. (American College).—To recite badly; to fail; to bungle.
Slung. Slung out on hands and knees, phr. (tailors').—Instantly dismissed.
'Slur, suos. verb. (B. E. and Grose).—1. 'A Cheat at Dice; also a slight Scandal or Affront.' Hence (2) to cheat.
1664. Butler, Hudibras, ii. ii. What was the public faith found out for But to slur men out of what they fought for. Ibid., Remains, 'Misc. Thoughts.' Some flug'ring trick or slur.
1680. Compleat Gamester, ii. Slurring—that is by taking up your dice as you will have them advantageously lie in your hand, placing the one atop the other, not caring if the uppermost run a millstone . . . if the undermost run without turning.
Slush, subs. (nautical).—1. Food. Hence 2. (Grose) = a foul feeder: also slush-bucket; slusher (or slushy), see quot. 1890. Also 3 (old) = a drunkard.
1890. Argus, 20 Sept., 13, 6. Sundays are the most trying days of all, say the cuisiniers . . . This man's assistant is called the slusher.
1896. Paterson, Man from Snowy River, 162. The tarboy, the cook, andthe slushy . . . with the rest of theshearing horde.
4. (American journalists').—Indifferent matter; padding (q.v.).
Slut, subs. (old).—1. A dirty housewife; (2) = an awkward person or thing; (3) a wench (q.v.): cf. Quean; (4) a bitch. As verb. = to befoul; sluttery (also sluttishness) = neglect; sluttish = (1) wanton; and (2)untidy.
14[?]. Babees Book [E. E. T. S.], 158. Crabbe is a slutt to kerve, and a wrawd wight; Breke euery clawe a sondur.
1483. Chaucer, Cant. Tales, 'Prol. to Canon Yeoman's Tale,' 83. Why is thy lord so sluttish?
1596. Shakspeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, v. v. 50. Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery.
1615. Sylvester, Tobacco Battered. Don Tobacco's damnable Infection Slutting the Body.
1648. Herrick, Hesperides, 'Excesse.' Excesse is sluttish; keepe the meane; for why? Vertue's clean conclave is sobriety.
1664. Pepys, Diary, 21 Feb. Our little girl Susan is a most admirable slut, and pleases us mightily, doing more service than both the others. Ibid. (1665), 7 Nov. He carried his glass with him for his man to let him drink out of at the Duke of Albemarle's, where he intended to dine, though this he did to prevent sluttery.
d. 1704. Brown, Works, i. 338. The young slut never looked so gay and pleasant in her life.
1705. Vanbrugh, Confederacy, iii. 2. I have managed Master Gripe's little affairs for him these ten years, you slut, you!
1712. Addison, Spectator, No. 130. You see now and then some handsome young jades among them [gypsies]; the sluts have very often white teeth and black eyes.
1862. Thackeray, Philip, xiii. I gave my cousin this dog . . . and the little slut remembers me.
Sly, adj. and adv. (Grose).—'Under the rose; transacting business privately is frequently said to be done upon the sly'; illicit: also by the sly; to run sly = to escape, to evade.
c. 1787. Kilmainham Minit [IrelandSixty Years Ago, 88]. But if dat de slang you run sly, The scrag-boy may yet be outwitted, And I scout again on de lay.
1851-61. Mayhew, Lon. Lab., i. 318. A sly trade's always the best for paying, and for selling too.
1871-2. Eliot, Middlemarch, lxxviii. Selling myself for any devil's change by the sly.
1887. Henley, Culture in the Slums. I keeps a dado on the sly.
