Added 9 October 2026
slow
/sləʊ/ verb
In Latin: lentus, tardus Wiktionary
verb Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about slow at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
adjective
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Not moving quickly; taking a comparatively long time.
a slow walker
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At a slow tempo.
the band played a slow waltz
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Slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity.
so dense he never understands anything I say to him
adverb
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Without speed (`slow' is sometimes used informally for `slowly').
he spoke slowly
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Of timepieces.
the clock is almost an hour slow
Origin
From Middle English slaw, slow, from Old English slāw (“lazy; inert, slow”), from Proto-West Germanic *slaiw, from Proto-Germanic *slaiwaz (“blunt; dull; exhausted, faint, sluggish, weak, weary; listless, torpid; dim-witted, slow; lazy, slack”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *sleyH-u- (“bad”). Cognates Cognate with Dutch slee, sleeuw (“cramped, stiff; blunt; sour”), Danish sløv (“blunt; dull; apathetic, lethargic, listless, sluggish, torpid; drowsy”), Icelandic sljór (“dim-witted; blunt; jaded”), Norwegian Nynorsk sljo, slø, sløv (“blunt; weak; lazy”), Swedish slö (“dull; lazy, lethargic, slow, sluggish”).
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)