slur

Etymology

From Middle English sloor (“thin or fluid mud”). Cognate with Middle Low German sluren (“to trail in mud”). Also related to dialectal Norwegian sløra (“to be careless, to scamp, dawdle”), Danish sløre (“to wobble, be loose”) (especially for wheels); compare Old Norse slóðra (“to drag oneself along”). * (an extremely offensive term) Influenced by various compounds of sense 1 such as racial slur, ethnic slur, etc.

noun

1. An insult or slight.
   1. (specifically) An extremely offensive and socially unacceptable term targeted at a group of people (such as an ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.).
2. A mark of dishonour; a blight or stain.
   a slur on one's reputation
3. An act of running one's words together; poor verbal articulation.
   And now I'm drinking too much, so I'ma talk with a slur 2019, Juice Wrld, “Robbery”
4. (music) A set of notes that are played legato, without separate articulation.
5. (music) The symbol indicating a legato passage, written as an arc over the slurred notes (not to be confused with a tie).

verb

1. To insult or slight.
2. To run together; to articulate poorly.
   to slur syllables;  He slurs his speech when he is drunk.
   Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated. 2014-04-21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884
3. (music) To play legato or without separate articulation; to connect (notes) smoothly.
   Notes , the stems of which are joined together by cross lines, as in united quavers , semiquavers , & c . or notes over the heads of which a curve is drawn, to signify that they are to be slurred 1817, Thomas Busby, A Dictionary of Music, Theoretical and Practical
4. To soil; to sully; to contaminate; to disgrace.
5. To cover over; to disguise; to conceal; to pass over lightly or with little notice.
6. To cheat, as by sliding a die; to trick.
7. (printing, dated) To blur or double, as an impression from type; to mackle.