Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To move or slide by twisting or undulating the body over a surface, as in the manner of a snake.
  • intransitive verb To walk with a sliding or shuffling gait.
  • intransitive verb To slip and slide, as on a loose or uneven surface.
  • noun A slithering movement or gait.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In archery, a minute longitudinal split in a bow.
  • To slide: same as slidder.
  • Slippery: same as slidder.
  • noun A limestone rubble; angular fragments or screes of limestone.
  • To suffer a minute longitudinal split: said of a bow.

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

  • intransitive verb Prov. Eng. To slide; to glide.

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

  • verb To move about smoothly and from side to side.
  • verb intransitive To slide

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

  • verb to pass or move unobtrusively or smoothly

Etymologies

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

[Middle English slethren, variant of sliddren, from Old English slidrian, frequentative of slīdan, to slide.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English slitheren, alteration of sliddren ("to slither, creep"), from Old English slidrian ("to slip, slide, slither"), from Proto-Germanic *slidrianan (“to slide, slither”), from Proto-Indo-European *sleidh- (“to slip”). Cognate with Dutch slidderen ("to slip, wriggle, slither"). More at slide.

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Examples

  • There's no shadow of the world dark enough for them to kind of slither around in.

    CNN Transcript Nov 12, 2002 2002

  • If guests want to move from room to room, most people wait patiently or "slither" gracefully between the guests

    South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com - South Florida Recipes 2009

  • Each time, he comes to court with high-priced, well-known defense attorneys to fight his case and, every time, he manages to slither right under the radar of conviction.

    Larger Than Lyfe Cynthia Diane Thornton 2011

  • Twisted her other behind her back, all while avoiding the wriggling kicks and thwarting the clever maneuvers designed to slither out of even the tightest holds.

    Earl of Durkness Alix Rickloff 2011

  • Each time, he comes to court with high-priced, well-known defense attorneys to fight his case and, every time, he manages to slither right under the radar of conviction.

    Larger Than Lyfe Cynthia Diane Thornton 2011

  • He should just slither away like the snake that he is. carrieanne

    DeMint: Obama 'distracted' from protecting the country 2010

  • But still, they were only heart-stopping inches away from him and from Kate, who continued to slither through the network of wet steel toward the far side of the bridge.

    Gideon’s war Howard Gordon 2011

  • Dendra was never still for long; every so often one of the arms would give a little shrug, or the tip of a vine would slither back inside the dome.

    End of Time P. W. Catanese 2011

  • Sure enough, less than a minute later, I felt the hair follicles on my scalp slither and the familiar tingling that told me my hair was growing back.

    My Fair Succubi Jill Myles 2011

  • Dodd is one politician that slithers with the best of them and trust me there are plenty up there that slither real good.

    Connecticut Dem says time for Dodd to go 2009

Comments

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  • Isn't this a lovely little word?

    October 27, 2007

  • Yes. Yes, it is.

    October 27, 2007

  • "n. In archery, a minute longitudinal split in a bow." --CD&C

    March 6, 2012

  • Also, note the Firefly/Buffyness of the visuals.

    March 7, 2012