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PlainSpell

slime

/slaɪm/noun, verb

slime is spelled S-L-I-M-E: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 2.4 times per million words in written English, the 17,587th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, slime means “Soft, moist earth or clay, having an adhesive quality; viscous mud; any substance of a dirty nature, that is moist, soft, and adhesive; bitumen; mud…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of slime is slimes.

How many letters and syllables are in slime?

Letters5: S-L-I-M-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing2.4 times per million words; the 17,587th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is slime?

Slime appears 2.4 times per million words in written English, the 17,587th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce slime?

  • US /slaɪm/
  • Australia /slɑem/
  • /slaɪm/

Slime has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-slime.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Neøn-slime.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with slime?

7 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as slime from its last stressed vowel (/aɪm/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: miles, smile, limes.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of slime

  • slimes plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • sliming participle, present
  • slimed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does slime mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    Soft, moist earth or clay, having an adhesive quality; viscous mud; any substance of a dirty nature, that is moist, soft, and adhesive; bitumen; mud containing metallic ore, obtained in the preparatory dressing.

  2. 2

    Any mucilaginous substance; or a mucus-like substance which exudes from the bodies of certain animals, such as snails or slugs.

  3. 3

    Synonym of flubber (“kind of rubbery polymer”).

  4. 4

    derogatoryinformalA sneaky, unethical person; a slimeball.

  5. 5

    A monster having the form of a slimy blob.

  6. 6

    obsoleteHuman flesh, seen disparagingly; mere human form.

  7. 7

    obsoleteJew’s slime (bitumen).

  8. 8

    slangA friend; a homie.

verb

  1. 1

    To coat with slime.

  2. 2

    To besmirch or disparage.

  3. 3

    To carve (fish), removing the offal.

  4. 4

    To move like slime.

  5. 5

    To behave in a slimy, unethical manner.

  6. 6

    slangTo murder.

  7. 7

    To denigrate or slander.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Slime in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchboue (mud), glaire (mucilaginous substance or mucus-like substance)
Portugueselimo (mud), gosma, lodo, geleca (mucilaginous substance or mucus-like substance)
Spanishlimo, cieno, lama, légamo, fango, tarquín (mud)
GermanSchleim (mucilaginous substance or mucus-like substance)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does slime come from?

From Middle English slime, slyme, slim, slym, from Old English slīm, from Proto-West Germanic *slīm, from Proto-Germanic *slīmą, from Proto-Indo-European *sley- (“smooth; slick; sticky; slimy”). Cognates include Saterland Frisian Sliem, Dutch slijm, German Schleim (“mucus, slime”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk slim, Swedish slem, Faroese and Icelandic slím (“slime”), Latin limus (“mud”), Ancient Greek λίμνη (límnē, “marsh”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after slime