FromMiddle Englishslitheren, alteration ofslideren(“to slither, creep”), fromOld Englishslidrian(“to slip, slide, slither”), fromProto-West Germanic*slidrōn(“to slide, slither”), fromProto-Indo-European*sleydʰ-(“to slip”), equivalent toslide +-er(frequentative suffix). Cognate withDutchslidderen(“to slip, wriggle, slither”),Germanschlittern(“to slither, skid”). More atslide.
slither (third-person singular simple presentslithers,present participleslithering,simple past and past participleslithered)
- (intransitive) Tomove aboutsmoothly and fromside to side.
2023 October 12, HarryBlank, “Fire in the Hole”, inSCP Foundation[1], archived fromthe original on22 May 2024:She also had a map of the building, not that it was very large, and she'd memorized the layout. The guard station would be right around the corner, and there ought to be a counter about the height of a half-wall looking out over the corridor with only a bulletin board on the opposite wall. She crouched down, andslithered left.
- (intransitive) Toslide.
1954 February, Trevor Holloway, “Canada's Transcontinental Routes”, inRailway Magazine, page128:Some snow slides recorded have exceeded a million tons andslithered down the mountain-side at a speed of 60 miles an hour.
2003, J. Flash,An American Savage:I bent down and with both hands I scooped up as much of this pissshit as I could. The green and brown clump felt like Jello as it dripped down all over my clothes. It wasslithering through inbetween[sic] my fingers.
to move smoothly from side to side
slither
- (archaic)Slithery;slippery.
slither (countable anduncountable,pluralslithers)
- Alimestonerubble.
- (nonstandard, see usage notes) Asliver.
- The use ofslither to meansliver, which is prevalent especially in Britain (whereth-fronting is becoming more and more prevalent), is considered by many to be an error, though at least one major dictionary merely labels it "informal".
