sludge

Sludge is a substance that is between solid and liquid form.

(noun)

  1. An example of sludge is a mass of mud formed in a river bed after a flood.
  2. An example of sludge is the treated material from a sewage plant.

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See sludge in Webster's New World College Dictionary

noun

  1. mud, mire, or ooze covering the ground or forming a deposit at the bottom of bodies of water
  2. spongy lumps of drift ice
  3. any heavy, slimy deposit, sediment, or mass, as the waste resulting from oil refining, the mud brought up by a mining drill, the precipitate in a sewage tank, the sediment in a steam boiler or crankcase, etc.

Origin: var. of slutch, sludge, mud: akin to ME sluchched, muddy, prob. ult. < IE base *(s)leu-, to hang limply > sleet, MHG slote, mud, ooze

Related Forms:

See sludge in American Heritage Dictionary 4

noun
  1. Semisolid material such as the type precipitated by sewage treatment.
  2. Mud, mire, or ooze covering the ground or forming a deposit, as on a riverbed.
  3. Finely broken or half-formed ice on a body of water, especially the sea.
  4. An agglutination or aggregation of blood cells forming a semisolid mass that often impedes circulation.
intransitive verb sludged, sludg·ing, sludg·es
To agglutinate or aggregate into a semisolid mass; form a sludge. Used of blood cells.

Origin:

Origin: Perhaps alteration of dialectal slutch, mire

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Related Forms:

  • sludgˈy adjective

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