Slippery

How to spell slippery

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce slippery

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does slippery mean?

1. adjectiveSo smooth or wet that it is hard to hold, stand on, or move across without sliding.
2. adjectiveEvasive, unreliable, or difficult to pin down, as of a person or situation.

Slippery in a sentence

• The bathroom tiles became slippery after the shower.

• The contract contained some slippery wording that favoured the seller.

• Drivers were warned that the bridge gets slippery in icy weather.

• He had a slippery reputation among his former business partners.

Where does slippery come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Slippery grows out of native Germanic roots tied to the idea of sliding without grip. Old English had the adjective 'slipor', meaning smooth or likely to slip, related to the verb 'slipan', to slide. By the late Middle Ages writers had reshaped 'slipor' into 'slipper', and then added the common adjective ending -y to give the modern 'slippery', a form popularised in the 1500s. The same family produced everyday relatives such as 'slip', 'slope', and even 'slime', all carrying the sense of a smooth or sliding surface. The doubled p in the spelling reflects the short, stressed 'slip' at the front, and the unstressed -ery ending is where careful writers must take care, since it sounds like a faint blur rather than three distinct letters.

How the word is built

• slip (to slide)
• -er- (from older adjective 'slipper', smooth)
• -y (adjective suffix)