Slipstream
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The low-pressure zone immediately following a rapidly moving object, caused by turbulence. countable, uncountable
"Monza was the seventh race in a row at which Leclerc had out-qualified Vettel. There were extenuating circumstances this time - Vettel did not have a slipstream on his first lap and the farcical end to qualifying prevented him doing another - but a clear pattern is emerging."
- 2 the flow of air that is driven backwards by an aircraft propeller wordnet
- 3 A generated advantage which makes forward movement easier. broadly, countable, figuratively, uncountable
"The Republicans, who in fact quintessentially represent what I understand to be private and special interests of a narrow economic kind, have nevertheless managed, flying in the slipstream of Ronald Reagan's rhetoric, to look like the true guardians of the nation's public interest."
- 4 The relative wind experienced as a result of movement through air. countable, uncountable
- 5 The airflow over a propeller-driven aircraft generated by the motion of its propeller(s). countable, uncountable
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- 6 A genre of fantastic or non-realistic fiction that crosses conventional genre boundaries. uncountable
"Slipstream is not simply a mixture of fantasy and realism, but something which lies between or even beyond the two."
- 1 To take advantage of the suction produced by a slipstream by travelling immediately behind the slipstream generator.
"Although dangerous, over-the-road truck drivers sometimes slipstream with each other to save fuel."
- 2 To incorporate additional software (such as patches) into an existing installer. transitive
"You do this by slipstreaming the updates into the distribution folder."
Example
More examples"Monza was the seventh race in a row at which Leclerc had out-qualified Vettel. There were extenuating circumstances this time - Vettel did not have a slipstream on his first lap and the farcical end to qualifying prevented him doing another - but a clear pattern is emerging."
Etymology
Compound of slip + stream. Fiction sense coined by cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling in 1989.
More for "slipstream"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.