- slide
- slide vb Slide, slip, glide, skid, glissade, slither, coast, toboggan can mean to move along easily and smoothly over or as if over a surface.Slide usually implies accelerating motion and continuous contact with a smooth and slippery surface; it is used not only in reference to persons and to moving things (as vehicles){
boys like to slide down banisters
}{the fool slides o'er the ice that you should break— Shak.
}{when it's quiet you cart slide in there in a skiff— Gardner
}but also, especially in extended use, with reference to things which pass rapidly before one because of one's own swift and easy motion{house after house slid by as we neared the city
}or which move easily, unobtrusively, or gradually from one place or condition to another{prose that slides into poetry
}{shadows slid along the huge wooden tables— Sinclair Lewis
}{slide one's hand into another's pocket
}{it was inevitable that existentialism should slide out of men's minds— Cousins
}Slip carries a stronger implication than slide of a frictionless and unobstructed surface but a weaker suggestion of continued contact; it typically suggests involuntary rather than voluntary sliding, often definitely implying a loss of footing and a fall{slip on the ice
}{he had hurt his elbow through dropping his stick and slipping downstairs— Bennett
}{half-slipped, half-slid down toward the wide level ribbon that marked the frozen Schuylkill— Mason
}When only swift, easy motion is implied, slip heightens the emphasis upon quietness, stealth, or skillfulness{while we were talking, he slipped from the house
}Things are said to slip that pass quickly or without notice (as from one's grasp, one's control, one's memory, or one's observation){the book slipped from her feeble hands
}{the details have slipped from his mind
}{it leaves us without our being aware that it is slipping away— J. M. Brown
}{a father can't make offhand remarks to a 4-year-old and have them gently slip into oblivion— McNulty
}or as a result of one's negligence or inattention{the bus slipped by while they were engrossed in conversation
}{the tool slipped and cut his hand
}{he slips into occasional inaccuracies— Anthony Boucher
}Glide comes closer to slide than to slip in its stress upon such continued smooth, easy, usually silent motion as is characteristic of some dances, but it may or may not imply unintermittent contact with a surface and, apart from its context, it seldom carries any suggestion of danger{they glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall— Keats
}{even the swallows, the restless swallows, glided in an effortless way through the busy air— Jefferies
}{two monsterlike cameras on trucks that glided backwards and forwards— Edmund Wilson
}{I glide over these interesting items to dwell at some length on two men, now dead— Henry Miller
}Often, like slide and, to a lesser extent, slip, glide is used in reference to things that apparently move because the observer is moving{the landward marks have failed, the fogbank glides unguessed— Kipling
}{soft fell the splash of the oars . . . softly the banks glided by— Meredith
}Skid is employed especially in regard to wheeled vehicles the tires of which on an icy, wet, or dusty road fail to grip the roadway, thereby causing the wheels to slide without rotating and the vehicle to go out of control{the car skidded on the icy patch and ran into a telegraph pole
}In extended use skid, like slip, usually implies an element of danger or recklessness or a lack of complete control or grasp{he ran fast, occasionally skidding on an icy patch, but always quickly recovering his balance
}{a jet plane . . . crashed into a house in northwest Kansas City, skidded across a street and plowed into another home— Wall Street Jour.
}{his timid, tired voice skidding into a hoarse whisper— Capote
}Glissade, basically a mountaineering term implying a long slide down a snow-covered slope, carries the major implications of both slide and glide but stresses skillful technique and control{the danger of glissading, for inexperienced persons, is that they may glissade in the wrong place— Conway
}{Wilkins and I glissaded down the long snow slopes, and our porters . . . came sliding and tumbling after— Hillary
}In extended reference to things glissade tends to lose its implication of skill and differs little from slide, slip, or glide{rock fragments are streaming or glissading down from above— C. A. Cotton
}{you will really feel the buoyancy of the craft as it glissades over the Atlantic swell— The Motor
}Slither typically implies a sliding down or along a rocky, pebbly, or other rough surface with noise and clatter{the rest [of the tile] bounced on the roof and then slithered down it and off it— Masefield
}{the African Queen was slithering and grating over the mud and the tree roots— Forester
}or it may suggest a gliding, sliding, sometimes undulating motion suggestive of a snake's movement{crawling through walls and slithering along the ground— de Kruif
}{a crocodile slithering down a sandbank into a stream— Moorehead
}{a muffled slithering sound which he knew could be made only by men moving through a thin patch of jungle— Mailer
}Both coast and toboggan basically imply a downward movement (as of a sled or toboggan) on a smooth or slippery course under the influence of gravity and thereby come close to slide and glide){coasted his car down the long hill to the village
}{as Boylston Place ran downhill, it afforded in winter an irresistible chance for coasting, that is, for tobogganing with single or even with double or longer sleds— Santayana
}But they differ in their extended use, for coast usually stresses movement in the absence of continuously applied force (as of momentum or gravity){to coast from Earth to the moon ... we must achieve a velocity of 25,000 mph— A. C. Clarke
}{swallows were coasting in and out the smashed mill roof— Bartlett
}and often suggests an easy drifting{the country . .. seems in a mood to coast along— U. S. News and World Report
}while toboggan is likely to stress a building up of momentum and a resulting wild speed in a usually uncontrollable downward movement{three depth charges, each weighing 400 pounds, broke loose and tobogganed wildly on the main deck— Bigart
}{could it be possible that man, who fondly called himself Homo sapiens, was tobogganing into another self-destructive war while the wounds of the last were still throbbing?— Pinckney
}{the Chinese dollar, which, amid all the speculating, had been tobogganing steadily— Vanya Oakes
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
