Word.ws English Dictionary

slick

/slɪk/

slick adjective: slippery or smooth due to a covering of liquid; often used to describe appearances. Also the alternative form of sleek.

Adjective

slick (comparative slicker, superlative slickest)

  1. Slippery or smooth due to a covering of liquid; often used to describe appearances.
    • This rain is making the roads slick.
    • The top coating of lacquer gives this finish a slick look.
  2. Sleek; smooth.
    • Both slick and dainty.[1611?], Homer, “(please specify |book=I to XXIV)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer...
  3. Appearing expensive or sophisticated.
    • They read all kinds of slick magazines.
  4. Superficially convincing but actually untrustworthy.
    • That new sales rep is slick. Be sure to read the fine print before you buy anything.
    • The threat the most radical of them pose is evidently far greater at home than abroad: in one characteristically slick and chilling Isis video – entitled “a message to the Jordanian tyrant” – a smiling, long-haired young man in black pats the explosive belt round his waist as he burns his passport...2014 November 27, Ian Black, “Courts kept busy as Jordan works to crush support for Isis”, in The Guardian
    Synonyms:
    glib
  5. (often, sarcastic) Clever, making an apparently hard task look easy.
    • Our new process for extracting needles from haystacks is extremely slick.
    • That was a slick move, locking your keys in the car.
  6. (US, West Coast slang) Extraordinarily great or special.
    • That is one slick bicycle: it has all sorts of features!

Noun

slick (plural slicks)

  1. A covering of liquid, particularly oil.
    • Careful in turn three — there's an oil slick on the road.
    • The oil slick has now spread to cover the entire bay, critically endangering the sea life.
  2. (US, broadly, dated) A rapidly-expanding ring of dark water, resembling an oil slick, around the site of a large underwater explosion at shallow depth, marking the progress through the water of the shock wave generated by the explosion.
  3. Someone who is clever and untrustworthy.
  4. A tool used to make something smooth or even.
  5. A tire with a smooth surface instead of a tread pattern, often used in auto racing.
    • You'll go much faster if you put on slicks.
    Synonyms:
    slick tire, slick tyre
  6. (US, slang) A helicopter.
  7. A camera-ready image to be used by a printer. The "slick" is photographed to produce a negative image which is then used to burn a positive offset plate or other printing device.
    • The project was delayed because the slick had not been delivered to the printer.
  8. (slang) A glossy magazine.
    • Many of the stories in SSB [Sex Behind Bars] first appeared in gay slicks, Mandate, Honcho, First Hand, et al.1981 December 1, Freddie Greenfield, “Insulting Prison Porn”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 20, page 11
    • When Carver, wild to be published in a major slick, decided to accept the changes, Maryann accused him “of being a whore, of selling out to the establishment.”2009 November 20, Stephen King, “Raymond Carver’s Life and Stories”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
  9. A wide paring chisel used in joinery.
  10. (slang) In omegaverse fiction, the copious, lubricating bodily fluid produced by an omega in heat.
    • I spent two fucking days locked up in that hotel room, miserable and hating myself and drenched in my own slick!2017, "Tessa on Ice", quoted in Marianne Gunderson, "What is an omega?: Rewriting sex and gender in omegaverse fanfiction", thesis submitted to the University of Oslo, page 41
    • For his ruts, Castiel orders slick from a single donor, who is, unbeknownst to him, Dean, who lives at the Roadhouse and is in contact with many of his colleagues and rescuees.2019, Tessa Barone, "Just Go Find Yourself a Nice Alpha: Gender and Consent in Supernatural Fandom's Alpha/Beta/Omega Universe", thesis submitted to Oregon State University, page 32
  11. (slang) A silver coin that has been worn to the point its surface feels smooth to the touch.
    • a slick doesn’t really give you anything except the satisfaction of owning it, while the hole gives you satisfaction if actually being able to see something2021 February 16, hotwheelsearl, “Would you rather have a slick coin with barely any details, or a holed one with good details?”, in CoinTalk.com
    • Somebody once came into the coin shop with a bunch of really well-worn junk silver that would commonly be called "slicks."2014 January 6, CaptHenway, “How much metal is lost by weight from wear during circulation?”, in NGC Forums

Verb

slick (third-person singular simple present slicks, present participle slicking, simple past and past participle slicked)

  1. To make slick.
    • The surface had been slicked.
    • So I slicked the broccoli with oil and seasonings and set it to roast.2009 January 14, Melissa Clark, “Green, Gold and Pink: Fast, Easy and Delicious”, in New York Times

Proper noun capitalized: Slick

Slick

  1. A term of address, generally applied to males, possibly including strangers, implying that the person addressed is slick in the sense of "sophisticated", but often used sarcastically.
    • That was a great move locking your keys in the car, Slick.
    • Don't you look good tonight, Slick!

Also used as

slick is also the alternative form of sleek.

slick is also the alternative form of schlich.

slick meaning in Bengali, Telugu, Kannada and Punjabi

slick in Bengali

স্লিক, স্লিক করা, স্লিক করার জন্য

slick in Telugu

స్లిక్

slick in Kannada

ಸ್ಲಿಕ್

slick in Punjabi

ਸਲਿੱਕ, ਸਲਿੱਕ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
More languagesFewer languages
slick in Gujarati
સ્લીક, સ્લિક, સ્લીક કરવા માટે
slick in Odia
ସ୍ଲିକ
slick in Nepali
स्लिक, स्लिक गर्न, स्लिक गर्नका लागि

Examples of slick in a sentence

  • His large round head was shaved slick.
  • my nipples got hard, and my cunt was slickwith juice.2006, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Glamour Girls: Femme/femme Erotica, Haworth Press, →ISBN:
  • Morning commuters in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas discovered slick sidewalks and icy roadways Monday.2024 January 21, Elizabeth Wolfe, Robert Shackelford and Mary Gilbert, “Icy conditions make for hazardous travel across central US, but...
  • I leave the train at Salisbury, where (in a very slick operation) another two-car set is added to the front of the train before it heads for London.2022 November 16, Paul Bigland, “From rural branches to high-speed arteries”, in RAIL, number 970, page 55:
  • She observed another parallel to menstruation, namely the abundance of 'slick' that Omegas produce when they go into heat, which mainly functions as an anal lubricant.2019, Chris van der Vegt, "The Second Genders: Utopia and Dystopia in Stranger Things Omegaverse Fanfiction", thesis submitted to Utrecht...

All 40 example sentences with slick

Synonyms of slick

  • glib
  • slick tire
  • slick tyre

Forms of slick

Adjective
comparativeslicker
superlativeslickest
Noun
pluralslicks
Verb
third-person singular presentslicks
present participleslicking
past participleslicked
pastslicked

Origin of slick

From Middle English slicke, slike, slyke, from Old English slīc (“sleek, smooth; crafty, cunning, slick”), from Proto-Germanic *slīkaz (“sleek, smooth”), from Proto-Indo-European *sleyg-, *sleyǵ- (“to glide, smooth, spread”). Akin to Dutch sluik, dialectal Dutch sleek (“even, smooth”), Old Norse slíkr (“sleek, smooth”), Old English slician (“to make sleek, smooth, or glossy”).

Words formed from slick

Phrases with slick

Words that rhyme with slick

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about slick

What does slick mean?
Slick means slippery or smooth due to a covering of liquid; often used to describe appearances.
What is slick in Bengali?
Slick in Bengali is স্লিক, স্লিক করা, স্লিক করার জন্য. See Slick meaning in Bengali.
How do you use slick in a sentence?
His large round head was shaved slick.
What part of speech is slick?
Slick can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce slick?
Slick is pronounced /slɪk/.

Words near slick in the dictionary

  1. slicing cucumbers
  2. slicing the pie
  3. slicing up
  4. slicingly
  5. slicings
  6. slick
  7. slick as a whistle
  8. slick as snot
  9. slick back
  10. slick cam
  11. slick down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: slick (page history and authors); Slick (page history and authors); slick (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); slick (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); slick (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); slick (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); slick (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); slick (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); slick (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-slick.ogg.

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