296 
S L U 
SLU'MBERY, adj. Sleepy; not waking. Unused. —A 
great pertubation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of 
sleep, an’d do the effects of watching: in this slumbery agita¬ 
tion, what have you heard her say ? Shakspeare. 
SLUNG. The preterite and participle passive of sling. 
SLUNK. The preterite and participle passive of slink. • 
Silence accompany’d; for beast, and bird. 
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, 
Were slunk. Milton. 
To SLUR, v. a. [slorig, Teut. nasty; sloore, a slut. 
We had formerly slory, to make filthy, to sully. It then 
became slurry; and lastly, sluri] To sully; to soil; to 
contaminate.—They impudently slur the gospel, in making 
it no better than a romantical legend. Cud-worth. —To pass 
lightly; to balk; to miss. Commonly with over. 
Studious to please the genius of the times. 
With periods, points, and tropes, he slurs his crimes; 
He robb’d not, but he borrow’d from the poor. 
And took but with intention to restore. Dryden. 
To cheat; to trick. 
What was the publick faith found out for, 
But to slur men of what they fought for > Hudibras. 
SLUR, s. Faint reproach; slight disgrace.—No one can 
rely upon such an one, either with safety to his affairs, or 
without a slur to his reputation; since he that trusts a knave 
has no other recompence, but to be accounted a fool for his 
pains. South. —Trick. 
All the politicks of the great 
Are like the cunning of a cheat, 
That lets his false dice freely run. 
And trusts them to themselves alone; 
But never lets a true one stir 
Without some fing’ring trick or slur. Butler. 
[In Music.] A mark denoting a connection of one note 
with another. 
SLUR, in Music, a mark like the arc of a circle, drawn 
from one note to another, comprehending two or more notes 
in the same or different degrees. 
SLUPZE, a town of Prussian Poland; 41 miles east-by¬ 
south of Posen. Population 1100. 
SLUSE (Rene Francis), an eminent mathematician, was 
born of a noble family at Vise, a small town in the bishopric 
of Liege, in 1622. He was educated for the church, and 
was a man of great learning in jurisprudence, medicine, and 
in the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and other Oriental languages. 
His principal work is entitled “ Mesolabium et Problemata 
Solida,” 4to. In this work M. Sluse rendered great service 
to the mathematical sciences, by simplifying some parts of 
the analysis of Des Cartes, which had engaged the attention 
of many eminent geometricians. He is author of a method, 
by which any solid equation being proposed, it may be con¬ 
structed in an infinite variety of ways by means of the 
circle and any one of the conic sections. He first gave a 
specimen of this method in the above work, but concealed 
the analysis till he published the second edition of it in 1688. 
An account of it is given by Montucla, in his “ History of 
the Mathematics.” This author remarks, that Sluse’s Geo¬ 
metrical Miscellanies, which appeared in this second edition, 
do honour to the author, and afford a proof of the great pro¬ 
gress he had made in analysis. Sluse’s papers in the Philo¬ 
sophical Transactions are, ]. “ A short and easy method of 
drawing Tangents to all Geometrical Curves,” vol. vii. 2. 
“ A demonstration of the same,” vol. viii. 3. “ Gn the Optic 
Angle of Alhazen.” 
SLUSZEWO, a town of Poland; 10 miles south of 
Thorn. Population 1050. 
SLUT, s. [Teut. slodde and slet. Tooke considers it as 
the past participle of flapian, to slow; slowed, slow'd, sloud, 
shut, slut; and observes, that the word was formerly ap¬ 
plied to males. Hence, in an old Homily, “Men, when 
they intend to have their friends or neighbours to come to 
their houses to eat or drink with them,—will have their 
houses to be clean and fine, lest they should be counted 
S M A 
sluttish, or little to regard their friends.”] A dirty person $ 
now confined to a dirty woman. 
Among these other of sloutes kinde, 
Whiche all labour set behinde. 
And hateth all besiness, 
There is yet one, which Idleness 
Is cleped:- 
In wynter doth he nought for colde, 
In somer maie he nought for hete! 
The veal’s all rags, the butter’s turn’d to oil; 
And thus I buy good meat for sluts to spoil. 
A word of slight contempt to a woman. 
Hold up, you sluts. 
Your aprons mountant; you’re not oathable, 
Although I know you’ll swear. Shakspeare. 
SLU'TTERY, s. The qualities or practice of a slut.— 
A man gave money for a black, upon an opinion that his 
swarthy colour was rather sluttery than nature, and the fault 
of his master that kept him no cleaner. L'Estrange. 
SLU'TTISH, adj. Nasty; not nice; not cleanly; dirty; 
indecently negligent of cleanliness.—-Albeit the mariners do 
covet store of cabbins, yet indeed they are but sluttish dens 
that breed sickness in peace, serving to cover stealths, and in 
fight are dangerous to tear men with their splinters. Ralegh. 
—It is used sometimes for meretricious. —She got a legacy 
by sluttish tricks. Holiday. 
SLU'TTISHLY, adv. In a sluttish manner; nastily; 
dirtily. 
SLU'TTISHNESS, s. The qualities or practice of a slut ; 
nastiness; dirtiness. 
SLUYS, or Ecluse, a fortified town of the Netherlands; 
Cadsand, near the province of Zealand, situated on an arm 
of the sea. Its harbour, formerly deep and capacious, is 
now unfit for receiving any but small vessels. It is furnished 
with sluices for laying the surrounding country under water, 
from which its present name is derived. It was taken by the 
French in 1794. Population 1200; 10 miles north of 
Bruges, and 20 north-east of Ostend. Lat. 51. 18. 35. 
N. long. 3. 23. 9. E. 
SLY, adj. [plitS, Sax., slippery, and, metaphorically, 
deceitful; slaegr, Iceland, versutus; and thus slygh 
was an ancient form of our word: “ slygh as serpentis.” 
Wicliffe. —Meanly artful; secretly insidious; cunning. 
And for I doubt the Greekish monarch sly. 
Will use with him some of his wonted craft. Fairfax. 
His proud step he scornful turn’d, 
And with sly circumspection. Milton. 
Slight; thin; fine. Not in use. —Lids devis’d of sub¬ 
stance sly. Spenser. 
SLY'LY, or Slily, adv . With secret artifice; insidi¬ 
ously. 
Hypocrites, 
That slyly speak one thing, another think. Philips. 
SLYME HEAD, a cape on the west coast of Ireland. 
Lat. 53. 23. N. long. 10. 3 4. W. 
SLYNE, a hamlet of England, in Lancashire; 2 j miles 
north of Lancaster. 
SLY'NESS, or Sliness, s. But slyness is to be preferred. 
Addison so writes it. See Sliness. 
To SMACK, v. n. [pmseccan, Saxon; smaecken, 
Dutch.]—To have a taste; to be tinctured with any parti¬ 
cular taste.—[It] smacketh like pepper. Barret. —To have 
a tincture or quality infused. 
All sects, all ages, smack of this vice, and he 
To die for it! Shakspeare. 
To make a noise by separation of the lips strongly 
pressed together, as after a taste.—He that by a willing 
audience and attention doth readily suck it [slander] up, or 
who greedily svvalloweth it down by credulous approbation 
and assent; he that pleasingly relisheth it, and smacketh at 
it; as he is a partner in the fact, so he is a sharer in the guilt. 
Barrow. 
Gower. 
King. 
