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slough

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A swamp, bog, or muddy, marshy area; also to shed or cast off skin, scales, or dead tissue, as snakes do; pronounced "sluff" in the shedding sense.

Detailed Definition
As swamp, “slough” (rhymes with “through”) conveys stagnation; as verb, renewal. In poetry, both appear: slough of despond, serpents slough. The duality allows rich metaphor—moral mire versus rebirth. Poets use it to explore how environments trap or how shedding brings growth, reinforcing themes of purification, despair, and cyclical change in allegorical and descriptive verse.
Example
Example in poetry:
“He cast off the slough of despair,” in a spiritual renewal; In Milton: “Slough not thy virtue for ease”; “The snake leaves its slough, reborn”; “Her soul shed its slough of sorrow”; “The land lay in slough after war”; Slough not your dreams for fear.
Additional Notes
“Slough” as swamp evokes moral or physical stagnation (e.g., Bunyan’s “Slough of Despond”); as verb (“slough off skin”), it symbolizes renewal—reptilian rebirth or shedding past sins—making it rich in dual metaphorical potential.
Also Known As
shed swamp marsh peel
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