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sludge

Pronunciation: /slʌd͡ʒ/

The English word “sludge” has 7 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. Solids separated from suspension in a liquid.
  2. A residual semi-solid material left from industrial, water treatment, or wastewater treatment processes.
  3. A sediment of accumulated minerals in a steam boiler.
  4. A mass of small pieces of ice on the surface of a water body.
  5. Institutional policies that introduce tedium and inefficiency in processes.

verb

  1. To slump or slouch.
  2. To slop or drip slowly.

Etymology

From Middle English slugge, sluche (“mud, mire”), probably an alteration of Middle English sliche, slicche ("mud, slush, tar"; whence Modern English slitch), from Old English *sliċ, from Proto-West Germanic *sliki, *slīk, from Proto-Germanic *slikiz, *slīką (“mud, slush”). Cognate with Dutch slijk, German Schlick. Compare also slush.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.