English Explanatory Dictionary

slur

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. An insult or slight, especially one that is muttered incoherently under one's breath.
  2. An extremely offensive and socially unacceptable term targeted at a group of people (such as an ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.).
  3. A mark of dishonour; a blight or stain.
  4. An act of running one's words together; poor verbal articulation.
  5. Any instance of separate things gradually blending together, such as heartbeats in some medical disorders.
  6. A set of notes that are played legato, without separate articulation.
  7. The symbol indicating a legato passage, written as an arc over the slurred notes (not to be confused with a tie).
verb
  1. To insult or slight.
  2. To run together; to articulate poorly.
  3. To play legato or without separate articulation; to connect (notes) smoothly.
  4. To soil; to sully; to contaminate; to disgrace.
  5. To cover over; to disguise; to conceal; to pass over lightly or with little notice.
  6. To cheat, as by sliding a die; to trick.
  7. To blur or double, as an impression from type; to mackle.

Pronunciation

/slɜː/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-slur.wav /slɜɹ/ En-us-slur.ogg /slʌr/ /sløː/ /sleː/ /slɛː/ /slɜː(ɹ)/

Word forms

slur slurs slurring slurred

Etymology

From Middle English sloor (“thin or fluid mud”). Cognate with Middle Low German sluren (“to trail in mud”). Also related to dialectal Norwegian sløra (“to be careless, to scamp, dawdle”), Danish sløre (“to wobble, be loose”) (especially for wheels); compare Old Norse slóðra (“to drag oneself along”). * (an extremely offensive term): Influenced by various compounds of sense 1 such as racial slur, ethnic slur, etc.

Synonyms

abuse dis misuse affront burn carry cut down disrespect diss give stick heckle hurt someone's feelings insult lapidate qualifier misbid misrespect offend send scandal scandalize slag slag off sledge slight slur sneap spite wound debase disparage befoul tarnish abase bring down to size cut down to size defame degrade demean demote depress discredit disgrace dishonour downgrade embase give a bad name humble humiliate knock down to size put someone in their place reduce relegate sink trim down to size whittle down to size assoil beclart bedaub bedirty

Related words

slurry

Derived words

downslur f-slur j-slur Q-slur r-slur r-slurred t-slur upslur slur over slurrer

Translations

Bulgarian: оскърбление Danish: skældsord Finnish: herja Finnish: loukkaus French: insulte French: injure Galician: gafume Galician: alcume German: Verunglimpfung German: Beleidigung Hungarian: gyalázkodás Hungarian: leszólás Irish: tarcaisne Japanese: 蔑称 Japanese: 軽蔑語 Japanese: 卑罵語 Māori: tīkai Polish: oszczerstwo Polish: obelga Portuguese: insulto Russian: клеветни́ческое обвине́ние Russian: оскорби́тельный намёк Russian: инсинуа́ция Russian: слюр Spanish: insulto discriminatorio Spanish: insulto racista Spanish: insulto étnico Turkish: hakaret Turkish: aşağılama Ukrainian: слюр
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on S Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary