FromMiddle Englishslough(“skin, husk, rind; cocoon; scales; cyst”), akin toMiddle High Germanslûch(“slough”) (whenceGermanSchlauch(“tube, hose”)).
sluff (pluralsluffs)
- Alternative spelling ofslough(skin shed by asnake or other reptile).
That is thesluff of a rattler; we must be careful.
- Alternative spelling ofslough(dead skin on asore orulcer).
This is thesluff that came off of his skin after the burn.
- Anavalanche,mudslide, or a likeslumping of material or debris.
2001 Mar, Buck Tilton, “Cold Comfort”, inBoys Life, volume91, number 3, page18:The Scouts learned from expert Keith Burke that snow avalanches come in different forms. A powder or "sluff" avalanche starts at a single point and fans out as surface snow slides downhill. These avalanches are not as violent as slab avalanches. Slab avalanches are very dangerous. They occur when a whole hillside of snow breaks loose in a giant slab, which then breaks into snow blocks that tumble downhill faster and faster.
2002 March 2, Sid Perkins, “Avalanche! Scientists are digging out the secrets of lethal flows of snow.”, inThe Free Library[1]:At least for smallsluffs like the ones Brown and his colleagues have triggered, the avalanche slides like a block of material instead of flowing like a fluid.
sluff (third-person singular simple presentsluffs,present participlesluffing,simple past and past participlesluffed)
- Alternative spelling ofslough(to shed or to slide off).
1995 Jan, Peter Oliver, “Easy Doesn't Do It”, inSkiing, volume47, number 5, page24:While I found wonderfully soft and untracked snow near the top, I ended up surprised by the firmer stuff in the chutes near the bottom, where small slides hadsluffed away the soft, top layer.
2011 October 10, “Anatomy of an avalanche”, inEncyclopedia of Earth[2]:After temperatures warm up a little, however, the snow will "sluff", or slide, down the front of the windshield, often in small slabs.
- ignore,shrug (off)
1996 January 29, Kevin Acee, “Several coaches are worried over what will happen to their sports”, inThe Free Library[3], archived fromthe original on26 April 2013:Blaser, for whom the rumored death of his program has been an annual affair, recalled the other day how nervous he was the first time he heard swimming might be cut his freshman year and how it became easier tosluff off the rumors.
- Alternative spelling ofslough(discard).
2009 February 16, Phillip Alder, “At a Florida Game, an Unusual Double Squeeze”, inNew York Times[4]:If either played another club, declarer would ruff on the board andsluff his diamond queen.
- to avoid working
- He'ssluffing off somewhere.
- (transitive, Utah, Idaho) To playtruant from (school).
- Sunshine for the Latter-Day Saint Mother's Soul
- Both calls told her the same thing — that her son had beensluffing school. She felt betrayed. She had trusted this child.
