slime

Etymology

From Middle English slime, slyme, slim, slym, from Old English slīm, from Proto-Germanic *slīmą, from Proto-Indo-European *sley- (“smooth; slick; sticky; slimy”). Cognates include Danish slim, Saterland Frisian Sliem, Dutch slijm, German Schleim (“mucus, slime”), Latin limus (“mud”), Ancient Greek λίμνη (límnē, “marsh”).

noun

1. Soft, moist earth or clay, having an adhesive quality; 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, such as snails or slugs.
3. Synonym of flubber (“kind of rubbery polymer”)
4. (informal, derogatory) A sneaky, unethical person; a slimeball.
   What about that, you slime? 1980, Richard Louis Newmann, Siege of Orbitor, page xvii. 78
   If this guy knows who killed Robert, the right thing to do is to tell the police. If he doesn't know, really, then he's an opportunistic slime. It's still blackmail. 2005, G. E. Nordell, Backlot Requiem: A Rick Walker Mystery
5. (fantasy, video games) A monster having the form of a slimy blob.
   This is a nameless blue slime, drawn by Chris Hildenbrand, for a role playing game (RPG) that was never released. 2006, Lawrence Wright, Character Design for Mobile Devices, Gulf Professional Publishing, page 8
6. (figurative, obsolete) Human flesh, seen disparagingly; mere human form.
7. (obsolete) Jew’s slime (bitumen).
8. (African-American Vernacular, MTE, slang) A friend; a homie.

verb

1. (transitive) To coat with slime.
   ‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared. […]’ 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess
2. (transitive, figurative) To besmirch or disparage.
3. To carve (fish), removing the offal.
   If so, this job was better than sliming salmon any day. 1999, Dana Stabenow, So Sure of Death, page 20
   You and me bunked in that dorm on the hill, remember? And slimed fish under that tin roof down there. 2013, William B. McCloskey, Raiders: A Novel
4. (intransitive, often figurative) To move like slime, like slimy things or like a slimy person.