▪ I. slurry, n.
(ˈslʌrɪ)
Also 5 slory, 9 slorry.
[Related to slur n.1]
1. a. Thin sloppy mud or cement. Also in extended use, any fluid mixture of a pulverized solid with a liquid (usu. water), freq. used as a convenient form in which to handle solids in bulk.
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 203/2 Gore, or slory, limus, tessequa. 1878 F. S. Williams Midl. Railw. 492 A nearly semi-fluid mass of ‘slurry’, which settles down like glue to the bottom of the wagon. 1886 Cycl. Tour. Club Gaz. IV. 187/2 The sand..should be watered until it..can be worked up into slurry with brooms. 1901 Longm. Mag. Sept. 396 Its sluggish streak of creeping slurry miscalled a creek. 1935 Discovery Apr. 119/1 The strata are pounded into a ‘slurry’ by the constant rising and falling of the heavy drilling tools. 1948 Chambers's Jrnl. July 388/1 The idea here is to break up the turf bank face by means of high-pressure jets, like firemen's hoses, into slurry. 1955 Sci. News Let. 20 Aug. 115/2 The U.S.-designed power plant..uses..thorium oxide slurry in heavy water in another part of the device, called a homogenous reactor. 1961 Aeroplane CI. 342/3 Whatever form of contaminant is selected, it is first mixed with kerosene to form a ‘slurry’, so representing the normal state in which it would pass through a filter in service. 1975 Nature 30 Oct. 818/1 In a second experiment, another batch of about 3 ml of the packed cell slurry was resuspended in the culture medium. |
b. spec. A mixture of water and fine particles of coal, produced
esp. as a by-product of the washing of coal; such material in dried form, used as fuel.
| 1913 Trans. Inst. Mining Engineers XLV. 429 Where the moisture percentage is not over 5, the small dust measuring less than 1 cubic millimetre (which is the cause of all the slurry trouble) can be just as efficiently treated by dry-percussive screening as by any other method. 1930 Ibid. LXXVIII. 27 It cannot be claimed that slurry is a suitable fuel for pulverizing. 1955 Times 4 July 15/5 They [sc. the N.C.B.] have been using a new type of mechanical stoker, which is fully automatic, to burn slurry—fine particles of coal and soluble shale which is rejected from washeries. 1976 ‘R. Lewis’ Witness my Death v. 180 That tip up there, it's full of water. The slurry is drifting down. |
c. spec. A mixture of manure or farmyard waste and water; manure in fluid form.
| 1965 Punch 22 Dec. 932/2 In a modern fattening house..the manure from several hundred swine falls through slatted floors into tanks beneath the building where a daily dose of water soon turns it into a forbidding quantity of evil-smelling slurry. 1970 R. Jeffries Dead Man's Bluff i. 5 He went through from the dairy into the herringbone parlour and stared..at the two days' accumulation of slurry. 1971 Farmers Weekly 19 Mar. 48/4 It takes one man about six minutes a day to clear away the slurry and a bit longer to put out the hay. |
2. In technical use: (see
quots.).
| a. 1825 J. Nicholson Operat. Mechanic 462 (Pottery), The thrower..forms the inside of the vessel.., and smoothes it by removing the slurry, or inequalities. 1832 G. R. Porter Porcelain & Glass 46 By the assistance of one of these [instruments] the inside is smoothed and any inequalities, technically called slurry, are removed. |
| b. 1841 Hartshorne Salop. Ant. Gloss., Slorry, Slurry, the levigated matter which forms under a grindstone. |
3. attrib., as
slurry disposal,
slurry pipeline,
slurry pit,
slurry pump,
slurry refiner,
slurry tank,
slurry tanker;
slurry seal (see
quot. 1967).
| 1970 R. Jeffries Dead Man's Bluff i. 5 He stared angrily at..the slurry disposal unit. |
| 1969 Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 13 Dec. 9/3 Kaiser..was contemplating a slurry pipeline to the coast as an alternative to rail. |
| 1976 Cumberland News 3 Dec. 13/4 There was a slurry pit also under a byre, made of slate. |
| 1940 Kristal & Annett Pumps 338/2 (Index), Slurry pumps. 1976 Cumberland News 3 Dec. 34/3 (Advt.), Alfa Laval slurry pumps. |
| 1916 Trans. Inst. Mining Engineers LI. 272 With the combination of this slurry-refiner and the elevated settling-tank.., it has been found possible to work a washery, year in and year out, without any outlet whatever. |
| 1967 Gloss. Highway Engin. Terms (B.S.I.) 30 Slurry seal, a mixture of binder, fine aggregate and mineral filler with water added to produce a material of slurry consistency. 1974 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 7 Feb. 5/6 Slurry seal is a tar-like chemical substance that is spread on city streets to preserve them. It is cheaper than asphalt. |
| 1936 Economist 25 Apr. 213/2 Property account has been increased to {pstlg}12,557 by the addition of the slurry tanks and quartz deposit. |
| 1971 Farmers Weekly (Extra) 19 Mar. 5/1 (Advt.), We know we have the best slurry tanker. |
▪ II. slurry, v. Now
dial. (
ˈslʌrɪ)
Forms: 5
slory, 6
slorye, 7
slorie; 6, 9
dial. slorry, 7
slourry; 6–7
slurrie, 7, 9
slurry.
[Cf. prec. and slur v.1] trans. To dirty, soil, smear, daub, etc.
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 460/1 Sloryyd, cenosus, cenolentus, lutulentus. 1552 Huloet, Slorye or make fowle, sordido. 1555 Bradford in Coverdale Lett. Martyrs (1564) 252 Though you lye in the darke, slorryed wyth the bishoppes blacke cole dust, yet [etc.]. 1591 R. Turnbull S. James 231 b, Malicious persons, who..soyle, slurrie, and file the garmentes of our neighbours. 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 195 As they that soile and slourry writing tables when they be faire scoured and clensed. 1635 J. Swan Spec. M. vi. (1643) 293 Amiantus..being put into the fire, is not hurt nor slurried. 1647 Hexham i, To Slorie, or make foule. 1828 Carr Craven Gloss., Slurry, to daub, to dirty. 1841 Hartshorne Salop. Ant. Gloss., Slorry, to plaster, daub over. |
| fig. 1647 Trapp Marrow Gd. Authors in Comm. Ep. 717 Divinity..that had been shamefully obscured and slurried with needlesse and endlesse doubts. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iv. 191 All the Great..things of this world, are slurried and disgraced, comparatively with the Life of Christ. 1736 Ainsworth i. s.v. Slur, To slur, slurry, or cast a slur on one's reputation. |
Hence
ˈslurrying vbl. n.| 1600 Abbot Jonah 363 The slurrying which was used toward him,..hath made him shine the brighter. 1611 Cotgr., Souillement, a soyling, slurrying, durtying. |
▪ III. slurry, a. (
ˈslɜːrɪ)
[f. slur v.1 + -y1.] Blurred, indistinct: now
usu. of speech. Also
ˈslurrily adv.| 1937 Daily Express 12 Feb. 5/3 This is the way to detect a forgery— look for notes that are rather blurred or ‘slurry’. 1969 ‘H. Calvin’ Chosen Instrument ii. 22 ‘We own nothing, we need nothing,’ the fat boy said slurrily. 1977 J. McClure Sunday Hangman xv. 174 ‘Why leave the bodies everywhere?’ Willie demanded, driven..to speak his mind, if a little slurrily. |