Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Smooth, glossy, and slippery.
  • adjective Deftly executed; adroit.
  • adjective Confident and effortlessly effective, especially in being persuasive.
  • adjective Superficially attractive or plausible but lacking depth or soundness.
  • adjective Slang Excellent; wonderful.
  • noun A smooth or slippery surface or area.
  • noun A floating film of oil.
  • noun A trail of floating material.
  • noun An implement used to make a surface slick, especially a chisel used for smoothing and polishing.
  • noun Informal A magazine, usually of large popular readership, printed on high-quality glossy paper.
  • noun A smooth, treadless tire, often used for racing.
  • noun Slang An unarmed military aircraft, especially a helicopter.
  • transitive verb To make smooth, glossy, or oily.
  • transitive verb Informal To make neat, trim, or tidy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • See sleek.
  • noun In metallurgy, ore in a state of fine subdivision: as sometimes used, nearly synonymous with slimes.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Sleek; smooth.
  • noun A slick, or smooth and slippery, surface or place; a sleek.
  • transitive verb To make sleek or smoth.
  • noun (Joinery) A wide paring chisel.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Slippery due to a covering of liquid; often used to describe appearances.
  • adjective Appearing expensive or sophisticated.
  • adjective Superficially convincing but actually untrustworthy.
  • adjective Clever, making an apparently hard task easy; often used sarcastically.
  • adjective US, West Coast slang Extraordinarily great or special.
  • noun A covering of liquid, particularly oil.
  • noun sports, automotive A tire with a smooth surface instead of a tread pattern, often used in auto racing.
  • noun US, military slang A helicopter.
  • noun printing A camera-ready image to be used by a printer. The "slick" is photographed to produce a negative image which is then used to burn a positive offset plate or other printing device.
  • noun A wide paring chisel used in joinery.
  • verb To make slick

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a magazine printed on good quality paper
  • verb give a smooth and glossy appearance
  • adjective having a smooth, gleaming surface reflecting light
  • noun a slippery smoothness
  • noun a film of oil or garbage floating on top of water
  • noun a trowel used to make a surface slick
  • adjective marked by skill in deception
  • verb make slick or smooth
  • adjective made slick by e.g. ice or grease
  • adjective having only superficial plausibility

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English slike, from Old English *slice; see lei- in Indo-European roots. V., Middle English sliken, from Late Old English -slīcian, -slȳcian (in nīgslȳcod, freshly smoothed).]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word slick.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.