Word.ws English Dictionary

slimeball

Syllables: slime·ballUK/ˈslaɪm.bɔːl/US/ˈslaɪmˌbɔl/

slimeball noun: a round lump made up of or coated with slime or a slime-like substance such as mucus.

slimeball: a round lump made up of or coated with slime or a slime-like substance such as mucus
Image: Alan R Walker, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

slimeball (plural slimeballs)

  1. A round lump made up of or coated with slime or a slime-like substance such as mucus.
    1. (specifically) A mucus-coated lump containing the cercariae (“parasitic larvae”) of a liver fluke (of the phylum Platyhelminthes).
      • The eggs [of a lancet fluke (Dicrocoelium dendriticum)] that pass out with the manure of an infested sheep do not hatch in the open. When eaten by the snail, they hatch and finally give rise to larvae that pass out of the snail's body in gelatinous "slime[-]balls."1957 May, J[ohn] T. Lucker, A. O. Foster, “Adult Tapeworms”, in Parasites and Parasitic Diseases of Sheep (Farmers’ Bulletin; no. 1330), Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Agriculture...
      • The cercariae contain massive glands, formerly considered to be penetration glands, but now believed to produce the slime responsible for the formation of these balls. It is likely that the slime produced by the snail itself may contribute, at least partly, to the formation of a slimeball.1976, J[ames] D[esmond] Smyth, “Digenea: Bucephalidae, Fasciolidae, Opisthorchiidae, Dicrocoeliidae”, in Introduction to Animal Parasitology (Biological Science Texts), 2nd edition, New York, N.Y....
  2. (colloquial, derogatory, figuratively) A person who is slimy (that is, sneaky or underhanded) or otherwise undesirable.
    • Even slimeballs were entitled to representation, though.1987, Daniel Lynch, A Killing Frost, New York, N.Y.: Kensington Publishing Corp., →ISBN, page 10
    • And I put my hands on her jugs. She goes crazy. She says 'Take your hands off me slimeball!' So I go, 'Rona, watch your language!' And she goes, 'If you wanna have fun with your hands, why don't you pass the time playin' solitaire.'1993, John Lahr, The Manchurian Candidate: A Play [...] From the Novel by Richard Condon, New York, N.Y.: Dramatists Play Service, →ISBN, page 72

Examples of slimeball in a sentence

  • Some of these slimeballs are perhaps breaking into Pentagon computers at this very moment, finding the dirty pictures some bored programmer stored on a corner of the hard disk.1995, Dinty W. Moore, “Back to Nature”, in The Emperor’s Virtual Clothes: The Naked Truth about Internet Culture, Chapel Hill, N.C....
  • He cursed Flak, then watched with horror as the slimeball explained to the world exactly how he, Kerber, had obtained the confession.2010, John Grisham, The Confession: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, →ISBN; Bantam Books trade paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Bantam...
  • He said it would be good for me, going to Grimsby; my hideous, horrible, sewer-minded, greeneyed slimeball of a two-faced, felonious bastard of an uncle.2012, Willy Russell, The Wrong Boy, London: Black Swan, Transworld Publishers, →ISBN, page 102:
  • Meanwhile, the film's villain, played by Ben Mendelsohn, is a bigwig slimeball who wants to monopolize and monetize The Oasis through excessive pop-up ads.2018 March 26, A. A. Dowd, “Steven Spielberg Finds Fun, and maybe even a Soul, in the Pandering Pastiche of Ready Player One”, in The A.V....

Synonyms of slimeball

Forms of slimeball

pluralslimeballs
alternative formslime ball
alternative formslime-ball

Origin of slimeball

From slime + ball. Sense 1 (“a round lump made up of or coated with slime or a slime-like substance”) is a calque of German Schleimkugel, from Schleim (“mucus, slime”) + Kugel (“ball”), while sense 1.1 (“a mucus-coated lump containing the cercariae of a liver fluke”) may be a calque of German Schleimball (from Schleim (“slime”) + Ball (“ball”)).

Questions about slimeball

What does slimeball mean?
Slimeball means a round lump made up of or coated with slime or a slime-like substance such as mucus.
How do you use slimeball in a sentence?
Some of these slimeballs are perhaps breaking into Pentagon computers at this very moment, finding the dirty pictures some bored programmer stored on a corner of the hard disk.
What part of speech is slimeball?
Slimeball is a noun.
How do you pronounce slimeball?
Slimeball is pronounced /ˈslaɪm.bɔːl/ (UK).
What is the plural of slimeball?
The plural of slimeball is slimeballs.

Words near slimeball in the dictionary

  1. slime-ball
  2. slime-balls
  3. slimebag
  4. slimebaggery
  5. slimebags
  6. slimeball
  7. slimeballs
  8. slimebucket
  9. slimebuckets
  10. slimed
  11. slimed out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: slimeball (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:

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

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