slather

present singular third person slathers · participle present slathering · participle past slathered · past slathered

1. transitiveTo spread something thickly on something else; to coat well.

   I slathered jam on my toast.

   Synonyms: smother

2. oftentransitiveTo apply generously upon.

   I slathered my toast with jam.

3. transitiveTo squander.
4. transitiveTo rain.

   ... rain had fallen all night and it was slathering down in sheets now. That didn't add to my good humor none.

   1918, The Green Book Magazine, page 949

   2 more examples

   ... rain still slathered down out of the rubbery black sky. "Why is the sarge always pickin' on us?" asked Ortwingle sorrowfully as the water drenched down the collar of his raincoat. "I figger maybe we are dependable," Smoot[…]

   1941, Esquire

   Bring forth the enemy / I want him to beg for his life / Bring forth the enemy / I want his neck on the knife / Incinerate the figurehead / Plan to erase you first / Flooding rain slathering / Bringing what you deserve

   2020, “Fallen Torches”, in Medium Rarities (Sludge Metal; Progressive Metal), Track 1

plural slathers

1. transitivecookingA thick sauce or spread that is to be slathered (spread thickly) onto food.
2. transitiveDrool (especially if abundant).

   [The river] Ván in SnE I 21 is mentioned as coming from the slather of the bound Fenris Wolf.

   1983, Edda: A Collection of Essays (Robert James Glendinning), page 177

3. plural normallytransitiveA generous or abundant quantity.

   In her eyes the manse people were quite fabulously rich, and no doubt those girls had slathers of shoes and stockings.

   1919, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 24, in Rainbow Valley

   1 more example

   Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season.

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC