Slime
(pronounced slahym)
(1) Soft, moist earth or clay, having an adhesive
quality; thin, glutinous, viscous mud; any substance of a dirty nature that is
moist, soft, and adhesive; bitumen; mud containing metallic ore, obtained in
the preparatory dressing.
(2) Any mucilaginous substance; or a mucus-like
substance which exudes from the bodies of certain animals (typically fish, snails
or slugs) or vegetable (eg fungi); any ropy or viscous liquid matter,
especially of a foul kind.
(3) In slang, as slimeball, an informal,
derogatory term for a sneaky, unethical, repulsive or otherwise despicable
person.
(4) In video gaming, a monster appearing as a
slimy blob or in some other way slimy.
(5) Human flesh, seen disparagingly (an obsolete figurative
use).
(6) In slang as “Jew’s slime”, bitumen (offensive
and obsolete).
(7) In the African-American vernacular (more
recently adopted in MTE (my thoughts exactly) slang)), a friend; “a homie”.
(8) In biology, as the acronym SLIMEs (also as
abbreviated SLMEs & SLiMEs), subsurface lithoautotrophic microbial
ecosystems, a type of endolithic ecosystems which manifest as agglomerations of
bacteria and fungi which inhabit pores in the interlocking mineral grains of
igneous rock beneath Earth's surface.
(9) In biology, as slime-mold, a broad term often
referring to roughly six groups of Eukaryotes (organisms the cells of which
contain a nucleus).
(10) In computing, as the acronym SLIME (Superior
Lisp Interaction Mode for Emacs), an Emacs mode for developing Common Lisp
applications.
(11) To cover or smear with or as if with slime.
(12) In industrial processing, to remove slime
from, as fish for canning (technically a clipping from de-slime so slime can be
both a synonym and antonym of de-slime).
Pre 1000: From the Middle English slime,
slyme, slim & slym from the Old English slīm.
The Old English slīm may be
from the Old English lim (birdlime; sticky
substance) but is probably from the Proto-Germanic
slīmą, from the primitive Indo-European
sley- (smooth; slick; sticky; slimy),
the source slao of the Old Norse slim. The English forms were related
to a remarkable number of similar words in many languages including the Dutch slijm (phlegm), the Danish slim, the Old
Frisian slym, the Old Norse slīm, the German Schleim (mucus, slime), the Saterland
Frisian Sliem, the
Latin limus (alime, mud or mire), the
Sanskrit linati (sticks, stays,
adheres to; slips into, disappears), the Russian slimak (snail), the Ancient
Greek λίμνη (límnē) (marsh), the Old
Church Slavonic slina (spittle), the Old
Irish sligim (to smear) & leinam (I follow (literally "I
stick to")), the Welsh llyfn (smooth),
the Greek leimax (snail), limne (marsh, pool, lake) & alinein (to anoint, besmear), the Old
High German slīmen (to smooth), and
the Latin līmax (snail). The main influence on the changes in
spellings noted in the Medieval period is thought to have been the Latin limus (slime, mud or mire) & linere (to daub, besmear, rub out,
erase). Slime & sliming are nouns
and verbs, slimed is a verb, slimy is a noun & adjective and slimily is an
adverb and slimier & slimish are adjectives; the noun plural is slimes.
Slime is available in designer colors.
Slime was used as an insult to a person from the early-fifteenth
century when the phrase “to cover with slime" appeared (apparently the
first use of slime as a verb) although slimeball appears not to have appeared
until the twentieth and, unusually in English, hyphenation is rare. Similar words in English include sludge, mud,
goo, gunk, mucus, mire, scum, ooze, fungus & glop and, ever inventive,
English has a wide range of alternatives for slimeball as an insult. In biology, the slime-mold dates from 1880 and those with a morbid fear of slime are said to be suffering from blennophobia, from the Ancient Greek βλέννος (blénnos) (mucus, slime) + -phobia. The
suffix -phobia (fear of a specific thing; hate, dislike, or repression of a
specific thing) was from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the
Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) and
was used to form nouns meaning fear of a specific thing (the idea of a hatred
came later).
Slime is a popular motif in political satire,
used here by Glenn McCoy (b 1965) to sum up crooked Hillary Clinton's (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) past and
the 2016 presidential campaign between her and Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021). The use of "slime" in this context plays on the almost universal human revulsion to such substances.
An unverified representation of the Earth’s human
population as a slimeball, plonked in New York’s Central Park (a place that’s
seen not a few slimeballs). This is actually a revival of the word "slime" in the now obsolete way it was used as a disparaging reference to human flesh. At the time
it was rendered, total population was some 7.88 billion souls and the calculation
used was a human density of 985 kg/m3 (2172 lb/35 cubic foot) at an average
human body mass of 62 kg (137 lb). This would
create a slimeball just under 1 km (820 yards) wide but the Earth’s population
may just have reached 8 billion so the slimeball’s mass will have increased by 0.010152%.
Slimeballs are where one finds them: Crooked Hillary Clinton with Harvey Weinstein. In some places, “slimebucket” is used to convey the same meaning.
A depiction of Laura Croft, of Tomb Raider fame, being slimed.