[Ads-l] sluffer

Barretts Mail mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM
Thu Sep 7 15:52:27 UTC 2023


None of Merriam Webster, the OED, Wiktionary and Dictionary.com <http://dictionary.com/> have this word (in English) whether spelled “sluffer” or “slougher.” 

Well the OED does have an obsolete/rare 1529 citation for a verb meaning “gobble up noisily”: Ye slvfferd vp sowse In my lady Brewsys howse.

It seems to me that “sluffer” is a normal noun form of “to stuff (off)” and is in the UD (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Sluffer).

“Sluffer” is also a portmanteau of “slipper” and “puffer” (https://www.elle.com/fashion/shopping/g38832332/introducing-the-sluffer-winter-shoe/) according to Elle. 


1. Tools of the Writer's Craft, p 212
Sands Hall
2011

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Better yet, make one of them clearly a hard worker and one a sluffer—and maintain their characterization through the lines they are given to say.
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2. Blink, She’s Bleeding, p 16
Rachel K. Olson
2012 
https://tinyurl.com/bdf9fxx

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Sluffers. Most of them were from the east side. You could spot a sluffer anywhere by the look in his eyes.
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3. The Gentle Giant and the Beauty Queen and Their City of Steubenville, Ohio, p 74
MJ Michael
2012
https://tinyurl.com/yc2jtw5r

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Ed could be a tough on a worker who didn’t pull his weight … One day when Ron was in the shower room, such a sluffer was complaining about tough Ed.
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Benjamin Barrett (he/his/him)
Formerly of Seattle, WA 

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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