slitch

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /slɪt͡ʃ/

Etymology 1

From Middle English sliche, slicche, slycche, from Old English *slīċ, from Proto-West Germanic *slīk, from Proto-Germanic *slīką, from Proto-Indo-European *sleyg- (“to be slick; slide, slip”).

Noun

slitch (uncountable)

1. (now chiefly dialectal, rare) Fine mud; silt; slake.
   • 1722, The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Abridged, volume 3, page 587:

     This would be the properest Manure for their Sandy Land, if they spread it not too thick, theirs being, as I have said, a shallow sandy Soil, which was the Reason I never advis'd any to use Lime, […] But as most Lands have one Swamp or another bordering on them, they may certainly get admirable Slitch, wherewith to manure all their Up-Lands.
     DeBow's Review (James Dunwoody Brownson De Bow, Edwin Bell, 1858), volume 25, page 206, quotes this and glosses slitch as "marsh-mud"

   • 1787, John Scougall, A Letter to the Lord Provost, and Magistrates of Edinburgh: Respecting a Plan for Enlarging the Harbour of Leith, page 10:

     With respect to the mud and slitch, which must gather in a wet dock, both from the fresh of the river, and the sea flowing in, a reservoir of water is necessary to scour it away. […] Any of the other wet docks must be liable to have slitch and mud in them, […]

   • 1794, Hutchinson, Hist. Cum., I. 564, quoted in the EDD:

     Lime is chiefly used as a manure, with clagg or slitch, as the farmers call it, being the wreck left by the tide on the shore.

   • 1928, Rodney True, quoted in Agricultural History, volumes 1-2, page 206:

     The remainder of the essay is chiefly concerned with means of increasing fertility by the use of sea weed, leaves raked together by poor children, slitch carted from swamps, and sea salt.

Etymology 2

Blend of slut +‎ bitch; coined by American science fiction author Robert Heinlein in 1982 in the novel Friday.

Noun

slitch

1. (slang, nonce word) A slutty bitch.
   • 2001, Alastair Morrison, The Bird Fancier: A Journey to Peking, page 94:

     When she came back, her father inquired who had made the call. The daughter replied that it was that ‘old slitch, Mrs Blank’. I was much puzzled by the word ‘slitch’ and wondered if I had heard correctly. I rather diffidently inquired as to the meaning of the word. The Consul General gave me a piercing look. A ‘slitch,’ he said, ‘is our own little private, personal family word for a cross between a slut and a bitch.’ I do not think I have ever been so surprised in my life.

   • 2008, Chris Crowe (possibly quoting Marhsall), Thurgood Marshall, page 27:

     Anyone [Thurgood Marshall's mother] really hated she'd call a ‘slitch.’ Man or woman, anyone racially offensive was a ‘slitch,’ which was a cross between a slut and a bitch.

   • 2009, Robb Forman Dew, The Time of Her Life:

     “A fritch would be a French bitch, and a slitch would be a sloppy bitch, and a flitch would be a flirting bitch...”

   • 2014, David Berg, Run, Brother, Run: A Memoir, page 191:

     "Chuck had high hopes for Sandra Sue," he began. "But she turned out to be a slitch—a combination of a 'bitch and a slut.'" The jurors chuckled with him. Then, for the greater part of three hours, Foreman pounded home the common-law-marriage defense, knowing perfectly well that if his client […]

Further reading

• Terry Victor, Tom Dalzell, The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang (2007), page 593

Anagrams

• slicht