sluff
/slʌf/
sluff noun: an avalanche, mudslide, or a like slumping of material or debris. Also the alternative spelling of slough.
Noun (1)
sluff (plural sluffs)
- An avalanche, mudslide, or a like slumping of material or debris.
- The Scouts learned from expert Keith Burke that snow avalanches come in different forms. A powder or "sluff" avalanche starts at a single point and fans out as surface snow slides downhill. These avalanches are not as violent as slab avalanches. Slab avalanches are very dangerous. They occur when a...2001 Mar, Buck Tilton, “Cold Comfort”, in Boys Life, volume 91, number 3, page 18
- At least for small sluffs like the ones Brown and his colleagues have triggered, the avalanche slides like a block of material instead of flowing like a fluid.2002 March 2, Sid Perkins, “Avalanche! Scientists are digging out the secrets of lethal flows of snow.”, in The Free Library
Verb
sluff (third-person singular simple present sluffs, present participle sluffing, simple past and past participle sluffed)
- ignore, shrug (off)
- Blaser, for whom the rumored death of his program has been an annual affair, recalled the other day how nervous he was the first time he heard swimming might be cut his freshman year and how it became easier to sluff off the rumors.1996 January 29, Kevin Acee, “Several coaches are worried over what will happen to their sports”, in The Free Library, archived from the original on 26 Apr 2013
- to avoid working
- He's sluffing off somewhere.
- To play truant from (school).
- Sunshine for the Latter-Day Saint Mother's Soul
Both calls told her the same thing — that her son had been sluffing school. She felt betrayed. She had trusted this child.
- Sunshine for the Latter-Day Saint Mother's Soul
Noun (2) capitalized: SLUFF
SLUFF (plural SLUFFs)
- Acronym of Short Little Ugly Fat Fellow (or Fucker), US Airforce nickname for the A-7 bomber.
Also used as
sluff is also the alternative spelling of slough.
Forms of sluff
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | sluffs |
| alternative form | slough |
| plural | SLUFFs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | sluffs |
| present participle | sluffing |
| past participle | sluffed |
| past | sluffed |
Origin of sluff
From Middle English slough (“skin, husk, rind; cocoon; scales; cyst”), akin to Middle High German slûch (“slough”) (whence German Schlauch (“tube, hose”)).
Words formed from sluff
- sluffy
Words that rhyme with sluff
Questions about sluff
- What does sluff mean?
- Sluff means an avalanche, mudslide, or a like slumping of material or debris.
- What part of speech is sluff?
- Sluff can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce sluff?
- Sluff is pronounced /slʌf/.
- What is the plural of sluff?
- The plural of sluff is sluffs.
Words near sluff in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sluff (page history and authors); SLUFF (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-us-slough2.ogg.
Cite this entry: “sluff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sluff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.