Word.ws English Dictionary

slither

Syllables: slith·er/ˈslɪðə/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

New Zealand/ˈsləðə/

slither verb: to move about smoothly and from side to side.

Verb

slither (third-person singular simple present slithers, present participle slithering, simple past and past participle slithered)

  1. (intransitive) To move about smoothly and from side to side.
    • [Indiana:] Wave it at anything that slithers.
      [Marion:] The whole place is slithering!1981, Lawrence Kasdan, Raiders of the Lost Ark
    • She also had a map of the building, not that it was very large, and she'd memorized the layout. The guard station would be right around the corner, and there ought to be a counter about the height of a half-wall looking out over the corridor with only a bulletin board on the opposite wall. She...2023 October 12, HarryBlank, “Fire in the Hole”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 22 May 2024
  2. (intransitive) To slide.
    • Some snow slides recorded have exceeded a million tons and slithered down the mountain-side at a speed of 60 miles an hour.1954 February, Trevor Holloway, “Canada's Transcontinental Routes”, in Railway Magazine, page 128
    • I bent down and with both hands I scooped up as much of this pissshit as I could. The green and brown clump felt like Jello as it dripped down all over my clothes. It was slithering through inbetween^([sic]) my fingers.2003, J. Flash, An American Savage

Adjective

slither

  1. (archaic) Slithery; slippery.

Noun

slither (countable and uncountable, plural slithers)

  1. A limestone rubble.
  2. (nonstandard) A sliver.
  3. (collective) A group of snakes.
    • On Sunday night’s episode of “The White Lotus,” Walton Goggins’ character Rick throws open the doors to cages containing a slither of snakes, resulting in another character being hospitalized for a snakebite.2025 March 6, Cameron Kiszla, “‘White Lotus’ snakebite scene was realer than you thought”, in KTLA 5, archived from the original on 26 Jul 2026
    • And from the hedge came the silken slither of snakes about to lather with foam and strike some legless sheep or ox left by the mutinous pack.1926, Eric Walrond, Tropic Death, Boni & Liveright, page 201

slither meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam

slither in Hindi

to slither, creep
रेंगना reṅgnā

slither in Tamil

வழுக்கிச் செல், ஊர்ந்து செல், நெளி

slither in Urdu

غلطی کرنا, لغزش کرنا

slither in Malayalam

ഇടറിനടക്കുക, ഇടറിനീങ്ങുക, തെന്നിയിറങ്ങുക
More languagesFewer languages
slither in Kannada
ಹಾವಿನಂತೆ ಸರಿದಾಡು, ವಕ್ರವಾಗಿ ಹರಿದಾಡು, ಆಯತಪ್ಪಿ ಜಾರು, ಹರಿದಾಡು
slither in Thai
เลื้อย lʉ́ai

Examples of slither in a sentence

  • He slithers like a limbo dancer under alder thickets girding the cliff faces.
  • Up at the cinema Campbell Cameron had been all slithering hands, like a dirty octopus.
  • When it slithers through the grass, the legless glass lizard is indistinguishable from a snake.

All 30 example sentences with slither

Forms of slither

Verb
third-person singular presentslithers
present participleslithering
past participleslithered
pastslithered
Noun
pluralslithers

Past tense of slither: slithered

Origin of slither

From Middle English slitheren, alteration of slideren (“to slither, creep”), from Old English slidrian (“to slip, slide, slither”), from Proto-West Germanic *slidrōn (“to slide, slither”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃sleydʰ- (“to slip”), equivalent to slide + -er (frequentative suffix). Cognate with Dutch slidderen (“to slip, wriggle, slither”), German schlittern (“to slither, skid”). More at slide.

Words formed from slither

Phrases with slither

Words that rhyme with slither

1 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about slither

What does slither mean?
Slither means to move about smoothly and from side to side.
What is slither in Hindi?
Slither in Hindi is रेंगना (reṅgnā). See Slither meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is slither?
Slither can be a verb, an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce slither?
Slither is pronounced /ˈslɪðə/ (UK).
What is the past tense of slither?
The past tense of slither is slithered.

Words near slither in the dictionary

  1. slite
  2. slited
  3. Sliter
  4. Sliters
  5. slites
  6. slither
  7. slither link
  8. slithered
  9. slitherer
  10. slitherers
  11. slitherier

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: slither (page history and authors); रेंगना (Hindi) (page history and authors); slither (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); slither (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); slither (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); slither (Kannada 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.

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

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