sleaze

/sliːz/

sleaze noun: low moral standards.

Noun

sleaze (countable and uncountable, plural sleazes)

(uncountable) Low moral standards.
- The level of sleaze in this city seems to have been rising rapidly in recent years.1988 January 11, The New Yorker
(Ireland, UK, uncountable) Political corruption.
- ministerial sleaze and mendacity2004 August 19, London Review of Books
- While no-one accused Major of corruption, it rebounded to his disadvantage because he was unable to stamp it out, and contradictory reports appeared in the Press as to whether senior Conservatives really supported those accused of sleaze, or whether they were furious and wanted them to stand down...2012, Helen Jones, Susanne MacGregor, Social Issues and Party Politics, page 3
(countable, informal) A person of low moral standards.
- She knew that sleaze Hakido would do something to stick the knife in and twist it to the hilt.1999, E. Brewer, Picking Up the Marbles, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 162
(countable, informal) A man who is sexually aggressive or forward with women to the point of causing disgust.
- I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that sleaze slept with your boss and I wouldn't take it lying down.1989, Weekly World News, "My hubby robbed the cradle and left me with the baby", 7 November, p. 42.
- Mother, he's such a sleaze! The way he looked at you!1996, S. Hoskinson Frommer, Buried in Quilts, Harlequin, →ISBN, page 64
(informal, uncountable) Sleazy material or publications.
- a tabloid newspaper full of sleaze

sleaze (third-person singular simple present sleazes, present participle sleazing, simple past and past participle sleazed)

(intransitive) To act or progress in a sleazy manner.
- He sleazed his way over to the women at the bar.
(transitive) To slander.

ஒழுக்கக் கேடு, முறை கேடு

As the car salesman approached, wearing a plaid suit and slicked-back hair, he seemed to embody sleaze.
The journalist decided to leave the sleaze out of her story.
Celebrity sleaze, even of a literary bent, is apparently more interesting and saleable than accomplishment.

Noun
plural	sleazes
Verb
third-person singular present	sleazes
present participle	sleazing
past participle	sleazed
past	sleazed

Back-formation from sleazy, originally used to describe the thinness and low quality of cloth.

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

What does sleaze mean?: Sleaze means low moral standards.
What is sleaze in Tamil?: Sleaze in Tamil is ஒழுக்கக் கேடு, முறை கேடு. See Sleaze meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is sleaze?: Sleaze can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce sleaze?: Sleaze is pronounced /sliːz/.
What is the plural of sleaze?: The plural of sleaze is sleazes.

Adapted from Wiktionary: sleaze (page history and authors); sleaze (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-sleaze.wav.

Cite this entry: “sleaze.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sleaze. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.