Word.ws English Dictionary

slickens

slickens is the third-person singular simple present indicative of slicken.

Meaning of slicken

Verb

slicken (third-person singular simple present slickens, present participle slickening, simple past and past participle slickened)

  1. (transitive) To make slick.
    • Sweat dewed her skin, slickening it.2001, Nora Roberts, Hidden Star

See all 2 meanings of slicken

Noun

slickens

  1. Fine, harmful, and (when wet) slimy pulverized rock, a waste product (pollution) produced by hydraulic mining and quartz milling, which can silt up rivers and accumulate on soil downstream of such activities.
    • For quotations using this term, see Citations:slickens.

Origin of slickens

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Ultimately a reference to the slimy, slick nature of the material. Compare slicken (“smooth”, adjective), slick (noun).

Questions about slickens

What does slickens mean?
Slickens means fine, harmful, and (when wet) slimy pulverized rock, a waste product (pollution) produced by hydraulic mining and quartz milling, which can silt up rivers and accumulate on soil downstream of such activities.
What is slickens the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Slickens is the third-person singular simple present indicative of slicken.
What part of speech is slickens?
Slickens is a noun.

Words near slickens in the dictionary

  1. slickem
  2. slickems
  3. slicken
  4. slickened
  5. slickening
  6. slickens
  7. slickenside
  8. slickensided
  9. slickensides
  10. slicker
  11. slicker brush

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: slickens (page history and authors); slicken (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.

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