Sleech

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Thick, soft mud that was left behind by flowing water, usually alongside riverbeds or shorelines. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    A soft, unstable mixture of mud and clay beneath Belfast, which is known for being difficult to build on. Northern-Ireland, countable, uncountable

    "The physical nature and engineering properties of the sleech have made it desirable to investigate each site before piling."

Verb
  1. 1
    To dip a vessel into water to fill it; to scoop up water, as with a bucket. dialectal
  2. 2
    To coax, cajole. Scotland

Example

More examples

"The physical nature and engineering properties of the sleech have made it desirable to investigate each site before piling."

Etymology

From Middle English sliche, a variant of slicche, from Old English *sliċ (“mud, sludge”), from Proto-West Germanic *sliki, from Proto-Germanic *slikiz (“mud, slush”), from Proto-Indo-European *sleyg- (“to slide, be slippery”). Doublet of slitch and sludge.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.