slipper

Etymology

slip + -er

noun

1. A low soft shoe that can be slipped on and off easily.
2. Such a shoe intended for indoor use; a bedroom or house slipper.
   Coordinate term: bootee
   Get out of bed, put on your slippers, and come downstairs.
3. (US, Hawaii, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore) A flip-flop (type of rubber sandal).
4. A person who slips.
   He is a frequent “slipper,” but doesn’t seem to have sufficient intelligence upon which to ever build permanent sobriety and happiness. 1955, Father John Doe (Father Ralph Pfau), Sobriety and Beyond, Hazelden Publishing, published 1997, page 130
   Virtually all human action is liable to opposing interpretations, depending mainly upon distance: to take the familiar case of the banana peel, the fall is painful to the slipper, hilarious to the spectator across the street. 1995, Russ McDonald, “Sex, Lies, and Shakespearean Drama”, in Jeanne Addison Roberts (editor), part one of Peggy O’Brien (editor), Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching Twelfth Night and Othello, Simon and Schuster, page 3
   Slipping on a banana peel does not mean big bucks for the “slipper” if the “slippee” has a good law firm representing it. 2001, Barry M. Levenson, Habeas Codfish: Reflections on Food and the Law, University of Wisconsin Press, page 7
5. A kind of apron or pinafore for children.
6. A kind of brake or shoe for a wagon wheel.
7. (engineering) A piece, usually a plate, applied to a sliding piece, to receive wear and permit adjustment; a gib.
8. A form of corporal punishment where the buttocks are repeatedly struck with a plimsoll; "the slipper".
   1981, Andrew Loudon, Staffroom mole leaks secret of his school's beatings book, Daily Mail and General Trust, World Corporal Punishment Research "Mrs Marlene Foster […] , an opponent of the slipper, said her son Gary had a bottom "as red as a beetroot" after he was punished for writing on desks. "
9. (euphemistic) The plimsoll or gym shoe used in this form of punishment.
   "All teachers had what was referred to as a 'slipper', but in reality was a cut down gym shoe designed for smacking our bottoms." 2004, James Morgan, Stretching Forward to Learn, World Corporal Punishment Research
10. (medicine) A kind of bedpan urinal shaped somewhat like a slipper.

adj

1. (obsolete) slippery

verb

1. (UK, Australia, New Zealand) To spank with a plimsoll as corporal punishment.
   1981, Andrew Loudon, Staffroom mole leaks secret of his school's beatings book, Daily Mail and General Trust, World Corporal Punishment Research "One boy was slippered five times in four days for offences such as missing detention, fooling about and being out of bounds."