slur
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /slɜː/
ipa: /slɜɹ/
ipa: /slʌr/
ipa: /sløː/
note: Liverpool, fair–fur merger
ipa: /sleː/
note: Humberside, Teesside, fair–fur merger
ipa: /slɛː/
note: Lancashire, fair–fur merger
ipa: /slɜː(ɹ)/
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)
Forms: form: slurs
form: slurring
form: slurred
form: 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.
Senses: examples: text: And how men slur him, saying all his force / Is melted into mere effeminacy?
ref: 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Enid”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 6:
glosses: To insult or slight.
examples: text: to slur syllables;  He slurs his speech when he is drunk.
text: "Thank you for your donation," the girl says, slurring the words together into a single syllable.
ref: 1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 182:
text: Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.
ref: 2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884:
glosses: To run together; to articulate poorly.
examples: text: Notes , the stems of which are joined together by cross lines, as in united quavers , semiquavers , & c . or notes over the heads of which a curve is drawn, to signify that they are to be slurred
ref: 1817, Thomas Busby, A Dictionary of Music, Theoretical and Practical:
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: To play legato or without separate articulation; to connect (notes) smoothly.
examples: text: they do not only impudently slur the gospel, according to the history and the letter, in making it no better than a romantical legend[…]
ref: 1678, R[alph] Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe: The First Part; wherein All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted; and Its Impossibility Demonstrated, London: […] Richard Royston, […], →OCLC:
glosses: To soil; to sully; to contaminate; to disgrace.
examples: text: With periods, points, and tropes, he slurs his crimes.
ref: 1693, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis.] The First Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC:
glosses: To cover over; to disguise; to conceal; to pass over lightly or with little notice.
examples: text: to slur men of what they fought for
ref: 1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:
glosses: To cheat, as by sliding a die; to trick.
topics: media
printing
publishing
glosses: To blur or double, as an impression from type; to mackle.
Derived terms: slur over