slur - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Musical notation for a slur (noun sense 5 and noun sense 6)

From Middle English sloor (“thin or fluid mud”). Cognate with Middle Low German sluren (“to trail in mud”). Also related to dialectal Norwegian sløra (“to be careless, to scamp, dawdle”), Danish sløre (“to wobble, be loose”) (especially for wheels); compare Old Norse slóðra (“to drag oneself along”).

slur (plural slurs)

  1. An insult or slight, especially one that is muttered incoherently under one's breath.
    • 1989 December 10, Zane Gilstrap, “Speculations About Why We're Gay”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 22, page 5:
      It seems that according to their best guess, our mother's [_sic_] drank too much coffee or alcohol, took drugs, or were under stress during the period of our conception. Underlying all this speculation is, of course, the big slur: we're some kind of unnatural or abnormal product, outside of humanity and their religions.
    1. An extremely offensive and socially unacceptable term targeted at a group of people (such as an ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.).
  2. A mark of dishonour; a blight or stain.
    a slur on one's reputation
    • 1859 November 26 – 1860 August 25, [William] Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White. […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1860, →OCLC:
      The undeserved slur which he had cast on my management of the household did not, I am happy to say, prevent me from returning good for evil to the best of my ability, by complying with his request as readily and respectfully as ever.
  3. An act of running one's words together; poor verbal articulation.
  4. Any instance of separate things gradually blending together, such as heartbeats in some medical disorders.
  5. (music) A set of notes that are played legato, without separate articulation.
  6. (music) The symbol indicating a legato passage, written as an arc over the slurred notes (not to be confused with a tie).
    Coordinate term: tie

symbol indicating a legato passage

slur (third-person singular simple present slurs, present participle slurring, simple past and past participle slurred)

  1. To insult or slight.
    Synonyms: abuse, dis, misuse; see also Thesaurus:offend
  2. To run together; to articulate poorly.
    to slur syllables; He slurs his speech when he is drunk.
    • 1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 182:
      "Thank you for your donation," the girl says, slurring the words together into a single syllable.
    • 2014 April 21, “Subtle effects”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8884:
      Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.
  3. (music) To play legato or without separate articulation; to connect (notes) smoothly.
    • 1817, Thomas Busby, A Dictionary of Music, Theoretical and Practical:
      Notes , the stems of which are joined together by cross lines, as in united quavers , semiquavers , & c . or notes over the heads of which a curve is drawn, to signify that they are to be slurred
  4. To soil; to sully; to contaminate; to disgrace.
    Synonyms: debase, disparage; befoul, tarnish; see also Thesaurus:demean, Thesaurus:dirty
    • 1678, R[alph] Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe: The First Part; wherein All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted; and Its Impossibility Demonstrated, London: […] Richard Royston, […], →OCLC:
      they do not only impudently slur the gospel, according to the history and the letter, in making it no better than a romantical legend […]
  5. To cover over; to disguise; to conceal; to pass over lightly or with little notice.
    Synonyms: cloak, hide, mask, occult
  6. To cheat, as by sliding a die; to trick.
    Synonyms: bilk, cozen, dupe; see also Thesaurus:deceive
  7. (printing, dated) To blur or double, as an impression from type; to mackle.

to articulate poorly — see also mumble

printing: to blur or double, as an impression from type; to mackle