Definitions

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

  • noun Partially melted snow or ice.
  • noun Soft mud; slop; mire.
  • noun Nautical Grease or fat discarded from a ship's galley.
  • noun A greasy compound used as a lubricant for machinery.
  • noun Maudlin speech or writing; sentimental drivel.
  • noun A drink made of flavored syrup poured over crushed ice.
  • noun Informal Unsolicited manuscripts submitted to a publisher.
  • intransitive verb To daub (machinery) with slush.
  • intransitive verb To fill (joints in masonry) with mortar.
  • intransitive verb Nautical To wash down (a deck) by splashing with water.
  • intransitive verb To splash or soak with slush or mud.
  • intransitive verb To walk or proceed through slush.
  • intransitive verb To make a splashing or slushy sound.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To apply slush to; grease, lubricate, or polish with slush: as, to slush the masts.
  • To wash roughly: as, to slush a floor with water
  • To cover with a mixture of white lead and lime, as the bright parts of machinery.
  • To fill, as the joints and spaces between the bricks or stones of a wall, with mortar or cement: usually with up: as, to slush up a wall.
  • To slop; spill.
  • noun Sludge, or watery mire; soft mud.
  • noun Melting snow; snow and water mixed.
  • noun A mixture of grease and other materials used as a lubricator.
  • noun The refuse of the cook's galley on board ship, especially grease
  • noun A mixture of white lead and lime with which the bright parts of machinery are covered to prevent their rusting.

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

  • noun Soft mud.
  • noun A mixture of snow and water; half-melted snow.
  • noun A soft mixture of grease and other materials, used for lubrication.
  • noun The refuse grease and fat collected in cooking, especially on shipboard.
  • noun (Mach.) A mixture of white lead and lime, with which the bright parts of machines, such as the connecting rods of steamboats, are painted to be preserved from oxidation.
  • transitive verb To smear with slush or grease.
  • transitive verb To paint with a mixture of white lead and lime.

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

  • noun Half-melted snow or ice
  • noun Liquid mud or mire
  • noun flavored shaved ice served as a drink
  • verb To smear with slushy liquid or grease.
  • verb To slosh or splash; to move as, or through, a slushy or liquid substance.
  • verb To paint with a mixture of white lead and lime.

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

  • verb spill or splash copiously or clumsily
  • noun partially melted snow
  • verb make a splashing sound

Etymologies

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

[Perhaps of Scandinavian origin; akin to Norwegian slask, sloppy weather.]

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Examples

  • And then I was thinking to myself that it was a good job that we had the stern, manly feeling to comfort us of our hard work being our duty, when I heard the _slush, slush, slush, slush_, sound of feet coming along the trenches, and then my sergeant said:

    Brownsmith's Boy A Romance in a Garden George Manville Fenn 1870

  • "Having had some time to think about it, the caller and I shouldn't have used the term slush fund; that was incorrect," Angle said.

    Nevada Appeal - Top Stories 2010

  • Now the dirty tactics must be financed through dirty money in what I call a slush fund and what I predict the law will call

    Brent Budowsky: The Hillary Clinton Slush Fund: Dirty Tactics, Dirty Money 2008

  • Owing to the fact that the energy which bears it downward is through friction converted into heat, a partial melting of the mass may take place, which converts it into what we call slush, or a mixture of snow and water.

    Outlines of the Earth's History A Popular Study in Physiography Nathaniel Southgate Shaler 1873

  • "They were looking for what they called slush funds stashed away by the former president, but no such funds existed," a Seongnam police official told AFP, refusing to disclose his name.

    Taipei Times 2009

  • "Having had some time to think about it, the caller and I shouldn't have used the term slush fund; that was incorrect.

    Angle: I shouldn't have used term "slush fund" 2010

  • And I'm one of those who's ambivalent about the issue -- on the one hand, I'd love to see more women in the F&SF TOC, on the other, it does look as though the ratio of women in the slush is the same as women selling ... and it's often a matter of editorial taste, which is something GVG is very honest about, publicly, and I really respect that, but on the other hand ...

    ccfinlay: Gender Redux ccfinlay 2006

  • I'd have thought issues of volume in slush would make the query process more effective.

    My God, It's Full Of Tweets! 2009

  • I'd have thought issues of volume in slush would make the query process more effective.

    My God, It's Full Of Tweets! 2009

  • Jasper, these are some outrageously uniformed comments you are making … States are set to receive at least $120 billion (15% of the entire stimulus) in slush fund money (supposedly allocated for and FMAP increase and education funds) that can be spent however they want b/c money is fungible.

    Matthew Yglesias » Guest Post: Furloughed at the University of Maryland 2009

Comments

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  • ...all that kind of rot and slush ... HF 25

    December 7, 2006

  • He was "uncommonly generous with his slush, the fat that rose to the surface of his coppers with the seething meat. Apart from what was needed to grease mast and yards, the slush was the cook's perquisite; yet Orrage was of so liberal a disposition that he would often let his shipmates have a mugful to fry their crumbled biscuit in, or chance-caught fish, though tallow-chandlers would give him two pounds ten a barrel in almost any port."

    --Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World, 90

    February 20, 2008

  • Eeew.

    February 20, 2008

  • Slush is the main problem.

    January 12, 2010