Slough vs Mire - What's the difference?
slough | mire |
The skin shed by a snake or other reptile.
Dead skin on a sore or ulcer.
To shed (skin).
To slide off (like a layer of skin).
* 2013 , Casey Watson, Mummy’s Little Helper: The heartrending true story of a young girl :
(card games) To discard.
(British) A muddy or marshy area.
* 1883' "That comed - as you call it - of being arrant asses," retorted the doctor, "and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous '''slough . — ''
(Eastern United States) A type of swamp or shallow lake system, typically formed as or by the backwater of a larger waterway, similar to a bayou with trees.
(Western United States) A secondary channel of a river delta, usually flushed by the tide.
A state of depression.
(Canadian Prairies) A small pond, often alkaline, many but not all are formed by glacial potholes.
Deep mud; moist, spongy earth.
* When Caliban was lazy and neglected his work, Ariel (who was invisible to all eyes but Prospero’s) would come slyly and pinch him, and sometimes tumble him down in the mire .'' (, ''Tales from Shakespeare , Hatier, coll. « Les Classiques pour tous » n° 223, p. 51)
An undesirable situation, a predicament.
To weigh down.
To cause or permit to become stuck in mud; to plunge or fix in mud.
To soil with mud or foul matter.
* Shakespeare
As a proper noun slough
is a town in east berkshire, and formerly in buckinghamshire, close to heathrow airport.As a noun mire is
.slough
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl), akin to Middle High German ).Alternative forms
* sluffNoun
(en noun)- That is the slough of a rattler; we must be careful.
- This is the slough that came off of his skin after the burn.
Verb
(en verb)- This skin is being sloughed .
- A week after he was burned, a layer of skin on his arm sloughed off.
- The mud sloughed off her palms easily
- East sloughed a heart.
Derived terms
* slough offEtymology 2
From (etyl) .Noun
(en noun)- We paddled under a canopy of trees through the slough .
- The contains dozens of sloughs that are often used for water-skiing and fishing.
- John is in a slough .
- Potholes or sloughs formed by a glacier’s retreat from the central plains of North America, are now known to be some of the world’s most productive ecosystems.
Derived terms
* sloughy * Slough of DespondAnagrams
* English heteronymsmire
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) , whence Old English mos (English moss).Noun
(en noun)Synonyms
* (deep mud) peatland, quagHypernyms
* (deep mud) wetlandHyponyms
* (deep mud) bog, fenDerived terms
* mire crow * mire drum * miry * in the mire * quagmireVerb
(mir)- to mire a horse or wagon
- Smirched thus and mired with infamy.