Word.ws English Dictionary

slickrock

slickrock noun: a rock or a rock formation made smooth by weathering.

Noun

slickrock (countable and uncountable, plural slickrocks)

  1. A rock or a rock formation made smooth by weathering.
    • Rubber or cord soles are best for climbing over “slickrocks.” Well-advised tenderfeet keep shirt collars buttoned and sleeves rolled down, for the desert and high mountain sun burns mercilessly.1941, Writer’s Program of the Works Progress Administration, Utah: A Guide to the State, page xx
    • Breaking camp the next morning, I asked Kent Frost about the origin of the term slickrock. “It isn’t necessarily limited to any particular geological formation?” I asked. ¶ “No, it isn’t,” Kent said. “It’s more like the whole country is slickrock, even where it’s crumbling away.”1971, Edward Abbey, Slickrock: Endangered Canyons of the Southwest, →ISBN, page 11

Forms of slickrock

pluralslickrocks

Origin of slickrock

From slick + rock.

Questions about slickrock

What does slickrock mean?
Slickrock means a rock or a rock formation made smooth by weathering.
What part of speech is slickrock?
Slickrock is a noun.
What is the plural of slickrock?
The plural of slickrock is slickrocks.

Words near slickrock in the dictionary

  1. slicking up
  2. slickings
  3. slickly
  4. slickness
  5. slicknesses
  6. slickrock
  7. slickrocks
  8. slicks
  9. slicks back
  10. slicks down
  11. slicks up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: slickrock (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: “slickrock.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/slickrock. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.