slalom

Etymology

From Norwegian sla (“steep, hill side”) and låm (“trail”).

noun

1. (uncountable, sports) The sport of skiing in a zigzag course through gates. (Often used attributively)
   Slalom is her strongest Olympic sport.
   The slalom gates are set closer together.
2. (uncountable) Any similar activity on other vehicles, including canoes and water skis.
   Disowned by my father... I began an erratic and increasingly steep slalom. Rejected would-be mercenary pilot, failed Jesuit novice, unpublished writer of pornography… yet for all these failures I had a tenacious faith in myself, a messiah as yet without 1979, J.G. Ballard, The Unlimited Dream Company, chapter 1
3. (countable, sports) A course used for the sport of slalom.
   These first two slaloms have sixty gates each.
4. (countable, sports) A race or competition wherein participants each perform the sport of slalom.
   He has won six World Cup slaloms.

verb

1. (intransitive) To race in a slalom.
2. (intransitive) To move in a slalom-like manner.
   Snow fell, swirled, slalomed past our windows. 1988, Edmund White, chapter 3, in The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, published 1994
   Gerrard plainly had other ideas as he set off on that final, driving run into the opposition penalty area, slaloming between Kamil Glik and Grzegorz Wojtkowiak and getting his shot away as a third defender, Artur Jedzejczyk, and the goalkeeper, Wojciech Szczesny, tried to close him out. 15 October 2013, Daniel Taylor, The Guardian