slough

IPA: sɫˈʌf

The skin shed by a snake or other reptile.
Dead skin on a sore or ulcer.
(Britain) A muddy or marshy area.
(Eastern United States) A type of swamp or shallow lake system, typically formed as or by the backwater of a larger waterway, similar to a bayou with trees.
(Western US) A secondary channel of a river delta, usually flushed by the tide.
A state of depression.
(Canadian Prairies) A small pond, often alkaline, many but not all formed by glacial potholes.
A town in east Berkshire, England (formerly Buckinghamshire), close to Heathrow Airport.
A borough and unitary authority (Slough Borough Council) in Berkshire.

(transitive) To shed skin or outer layers.
(intransitive) To slide off or flake off, as an outer layer, such as skin, might do.
(transitive, card games) To discard.
(intransitive, slang, Western US) To commit truancy, be absent from school without permission.

Examples of "slough" in Sentences

Trouble was there was a slight slough from a pond right up to the fence.
We had a small stream, which we called a slough, that ran behind our house.
The slough was a large shallow embayment and a quiet water estuary with little tidal influence.
And, the B7 line, once it's on the other side of the slough, is measurably further away from wetlands and sensitive areas as well.
The Bitterroot River Protection Association says the slough is free flowing, which under Montana law would make it open to the public.
Among the most abundant shorebirds in the slough are the western sandpiper, least sandpiper, marbled godwit, dowitchers, willet, American avocet, black-bellied plover, sanderling and long-billed curlew.
Like another genius it had taken possession of him and led him through what Jewdwine had called the slough of journalism, so that he went with fine fastidious feet, choosing the clean places in that difficult way.
On Mitchell Slough, a part of the Bitterroot River, the billionaire discount broker Charles Schwab and the singer Huey Lewis have banded together with other landowners to argue that the slough is actually an irrigation ditch and shouldn't be open to the public.