Definitions

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

  • noun One who is habitually careless in personal appearance or work.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A person who is careless of dress or negligent of cleanliness; a person who is habitually negligent of neatness and order; also, a careless and lazy person.
  • noun A knave; a rascal.
  • noun Same as Slovene.

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

  • noun A man or boy habitually negligent of neathess and order; -- the correlative term to slattern, or slut.

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

  • noun A man or boy habitually negligent of neatness and order; -- the male equivalent of slattern, or slut; untidy, dirty.
  • noun low, base, lewd
  • noun obsolete immoral woman

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

  • noun a coarse obnoxious person

Etymologies

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

[Middle English slovein, perhaps from Middle Flemish sloovin, a scold, gossip, from Middle Low German slôven, to dress carelessly; akin to Dutch sloof, untidy woman; see sleubh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle Flemish sloovin ("a scold") related to sloef ("untidy, shabby"), from Proto-Germanic *slup- + Old French suffix -ain, from Latin -anus Related to slob, slow, sloth, slush, slurp, sloof, slattern, and slut.

Support

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

Examples

  • As to his dress in general, he cannot indeed be called a sloven, but sometimes he is too gaudy, at other times too plain, to be uniformly elegant.

    Clarissa Harlowe 2006

  • As to his dress in general, he cannot indeed be called a sloven, but sometimes he is too gaudy, at other times too plain, to be uniformly elegant.

    Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 2 Samuel Richardson 1725

  • They are the most unpatriotic, sloven, knuckle-draggers I've ever seen.

    War funding bill survives procedural vote... barely 2009

  • Tim and Eric are perhaps the most notorious for aping the style of public access programs, showcasing the sloven nature of the worst television has to offer, but they have something original to say, to express.

    This Week In Trailers: Trash Humpers, It’s A Wonderful Afterlife, Mega Piranha, Peacock, Casino Jack and the United States of Money | /Film 2010

  • This sloven real life jabba the hut is really a nuisance to society, but he has his moments of entertainment. jvoe Says:

    Matthew Yglesias » The Wrath of Rush 2009

  • The others would purse their lips and say that it could happen to anyone and not everyone always had a suitable piece of handwork ready, but their tone and looks said all too clearly that this woman was a sloven.

    Chitambo - 2 David McDuff 2010

  • The others would purse their lips and say that it could happen to anyone and not everyone always had a suitable piece of handwork ready, but their tone and looks said all too clearly that this woman was a sloven.

    Archive 2010-08-01 David McDuff 2010

  • Obviously the most problematic is the one about people who have unkempt or sloven appearances, which is not only highly subjective but also have only a tenuous at best relationship to potential misuse of firearms.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Consumer Supremacy? 2009

  • I learned Lambaneish insults meaning slattern, sloven, idler, lackwit.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

  • I learned Lambaneish insults meaning slattern, sloven, idler, lackwit.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

Comments

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