sludge
sludge
Definition
sludge (sluj)
noun
- mud, mire, or ooze covering the ground or forming a deposit at the bottom of bodies of water
- spongy lumps of drift ice
- 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.
Etymology: var. of slutch, sludge, mud: akin to ME sluchched, muddy, prob. ult. < IE base *(s)leu-, to hang limply > sleet, MHG slote, mud, ooze
sludg′y adjective sludg′i·er, sludg′i·est
sludge
Synonyms
sludge
Usage Examples
Preposition: from
- tank: Sludge digestion The sludge from the different tanks passes into the digester, a large vessel containing very little air.
Converse of object
- digest: Soil erosion Soil erosion is reduced where digested sludge from farm slurry digester schemes provides a good fertilizer.
- activate: See also activated sludge, a type of green water system where all the nutrients are kept in suspension.
- treat: What happens if treated sludge is dumped in rivers and lakes?
- dry: Sewage sludge: 1million tons of dried sewage sludge is produced every year resulting from 26 million tons of raw sewage sludge.
- remove: All that existed was a fully mobile sludge removed by water alone.
Adjective modifier
- toxic: That is not much greener than a pile of toxic sludge.
- radioactive: Apart from the radioactive sludge it left on the plate.
- liquid: For route 3 the fuel used for bringing liquid sludge or sludge pellets to the farmers is included.
- brown: There were bottles of evil smelling, thick brown sludge, which tasted awful.
- black: Busy at work were brick layers, hedge choppers, a bulldozer and one rather happy-looking bunch knee-high in black sludge.
Modifies a noun
- thickener: Sludge thickener audits carried out at selected treatment works.
- digestion: Such engines are sometimes run partly on the gas ( mostly methane ) from the sludge digestion tanks.
- blanket: We were also the world pioneers of first automatic sludge blanket level detector.
- disposal: The four investigated sludge disposal routes We choose four different disposal routes on which to perform our case study.
- recycling: A new odor control system for the sludge recycling would also be installed during the scheme.
- pellet: For route 3 the fuel used for bringing liquid sludge or sludge pellets to the farmers is included.
Noun used with modifier
- sewage: The dumping of sewage sludge at sea was banned in 2000.
- mill: Whilst the research focuses on one particular composting substrate, paper mill sludge, many of the findings could be of much wider interest.
- waste: They cover stabilization and reduction of waste sludge, and stabilization of residue ground from heaving.
Browse dictionary entries near sludge
- slub
- SLR
- sloyd
- slowworm
- slowpoke
- slowness
- slowly
- slowdown
- slow-witted
- slow virus
- sludgeworm
- slue
- sluff
- slug
- slugabed
- slugfest
- sluggard
- slugger
- slugging percentage
- sluggish
