Meanings
comparative more sluttish · superlative most sluttish
- vulgarLike a slut; sexually promiscuous.
His name was perhaps the least likely ever to have been young: it evoked for me the sunless complexion, unaired suiting, steel-rimmed glasses of a ledger clerk in a vanished age. Or had done so, before I found my beautiful, cocky, sluttish Arthur—an Arthur it was impossible to imagine old.
1988, Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 2 - datedDirty or untidy; disorderly.
"Check plates and cutlery for tell-tale signs of sluttish washing up […]"
1996 February 7, Helen Fielding, “Bridget Jones's Diary”, in The Independent, London, archived from the original on 12 Nov 20122 more examples
[…] an air of liberal, though sluttish, plenty, indicated the wealthy farmer.
1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and Archibald Constable and Co., […], →OCLC[…] and it was dark and sluttish as all Burmese rooms are, though U Po Kyin had furnished it 'Ingaleik fashion' with a veneered sideboard and chairs […]"
1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectivecharacteristic of or befitting a slut or slattern; used especially of women
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Middle Englishscluttish
- Englishsluttish
From Middle English scluttish, slottesche, slottysch, sluttissche, sluttissh; equivalent to slut + -ish.
More words from Middle English
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
sluttish. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sluttish
“sluttish.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sluttish. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “sluttish,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/sluttish.
Source: sluttish on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.