slough

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

• noun A depression or hollow, usually filled with deep mud or mire.
• noun A stagnant swamp, marsh, bog, or pond, especially as part of a bayou, inlet, or backwater.
• noun A state of deep despair or moral degradation.
• noun The dead outer skin shed by a reptile or amphibian.
• noun Medicine A layer or mass of dead tissue separated from surrounding living tissue, as in a wound, sore, or inflammation.
• noun An outer layer or covering that is shed or removed.
• intransitive verb To be cast off or shed; come off.
• intransitive verb To shed a slough.
• intransitive verb Medicine To separate from surrounding living tissue. Used of dead tissue.
• intransitive verb To cast off or shed (skin or a covering).
• intransitive verb To discard or disregard as undesirable or unfavorable.

from The Century Dictionary.

• A Middle English variant of slow.
• To come off as a slough: often with off.
• To cast off a slough.
• To cast off as a slough; in pathology, to throw off, as a dead mass from an ulcer or a wound.
• noun A hole full of deep mud or mire; a quagmire of considerable depth and comparatively small extent of surface.
• noun (slö), A marshy hollow; a reedy pond; also, a long shallow ravine, or open creek, which becomes partly or wholly dry in summer.
• noun Synonyms Swamp, etc. See marsh.
• noun The skin of a serpent, usually the cast skin; also, any part of an animal that is naturally shed or molted; a cast; an exuvium.
• noun In pathology, a dead part of tissue which separates from the surrounding living tissue, and is cast off in the act of sloughing.
• noun A husk.

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

• imp. of slee, to slay. Slew.
• noun The skin, commonly the cast-off skin, of a serpent or of some similar animal.
• noun (Med.) The dead mass separating from a foul sore; the dead part which separates from the living tissue in mortification.
• intransitive verb (Med.) To form a slough; to separate in the form of dead matter from the living tissues; -- often used with off, or away
• transitive verb To cast off; to discard as refuse.
• noun A place of deep mud or mire; a hole full of mire.
• noun A wet place; a swale; a side channel or inlet from a river.
• noun (Bot.) a name in the Mississippi valley for grasses of the genus Muhlenbergia; -- called also drop seed, and nimble Will.
• adjective obsolete Slow.

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

• noun The skin shed by a snake or other reptile.
• noun Dead skin on a sore or ulcer.
• verb transitive To shed (skin).
• verb transitive, card games To discard.
• noun UK A muddy or marshy area.
• noun A type of swamp or shallow lake system, typically formed as or by the backwater of a larger waterway, similar to a bayou with trees.
• noun Western United States A secondary channel of a river delta, usually flushed by the tide.
• noun A state of depression.
• noun Canadian Prairies A small pond, often alkaine, many but not all are formed by glacial potholes.

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

• noun a stagnant swamp (especially as part of a bayou)
• noun any outer covering that can be shed or cast off (such as the cast-off skin of a snake)
• noun a hollow filled with mud
• verb cast off hair, skin, horn, or feathers
• noun necrotic tissue; a mortified or gangrenous part or mass