slalom

plural slaloms

1. attributiveoftenuncountablehobbiesThe sport of skiing in a zigzag course through gates.

   Slalom is her strongest Olympic sport.

   1 more example

   The slalom gates are set closer together.

2. uncountableAny similar activity on other vehicles, including canoes, land vehicles, and water skis.

   But as we slalom up the driveway, swerving around parked parents dropping off their kids, and screech to a halt by the entrance, it turns out to be one motion too many.

   2019, Gordon Korman, The Unteachables, page 2

   1. countablefigurativelyuncountableA progression through a series of difficulties or sudden vicissitudes.

      Disowned by my father... I began an erratic and increasingly steep slalom. Rejected would-be mercenary pilot, failed Jesuit novice, unpublished writer of pornography… yet for all these failures I had a tenacious faith in myself, a messiah as yet without

      1979, J.G. Ballard, The Unlimited Dream Company, chapter 1

3. countablehobbiesA course used for the sport of slalom.

   These first two slaloms have sixty gates each.

4. countablehobbiesA race or competition wherein participants each perform the sport of slalom.

   He has won six World Cup slaloms.

5. abbreviationuncountableShort for autoslalom

present singular third person slaloms · participle present slaloming · participle past slalomed · past slalomed

1. intransitiveTo race in a slalom.
2. intransitiveTo move in a slalom-like manner.

   Snow fell, swirled, slalomed past our windows.

   1988, Edmund White, chapter 3, in The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, published 1994

   2 more examples

   Hiro climbs on his bike, eases it through the neighbourhood and onto the street, and then gosses it up to a few hundred miles an hour, slaloming between the stanchions of the monorail, practicing.

   1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 365

   Gerrard plainly had other ideas as he set off on that final, driving run into the opposition penalty area, slaloming between Kamil Glik and Grzegorz Wojtkowiak and getting his shot away as a third defender, Artur Jedzejczyk, and the goalkeeper, Wojciech Szczesny, tried to close him out.

   2013 October 15, Daniel Taylor, The Guardian