sleaze

English

Etymology

Back-formation from sleazy, originally used to describe the thinness and low quality of cloth.

Pronunciation
  • Rhymes: -iːz

Noun

sleaze (countable and uncountable, plural sleazes)

  1. (uncountable) Low moral standards.
    • 2004, 19 August, London Review of Books
      ministerial sleaze and mendacity
    • 1988, January 11, The New Yorker
      The level of sleaze in this city seems to have been rising rapidly in recent years.
  2. (informal, countable) A person of low moral standards.
    • 1999, E. Brewer, Picking Up the Marbles, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, p. 162.
      She knew that sleaze Hakido would do something to stick the knife in and twist it to the hilt.
  3. (informal, countable) A man who is sexually aggressive or forward with women to the point of causing disgust.
    • 1989, Weekly World News, "My hubby robbed the cradle and left me with the baby", 7 November, p. 42.
      I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that sleaze slept with your boss and I wouldn't take it lying down.
    • 1996, S. Hoskinson Frommer, Buried in Quilts, Harlequin, →ISBN, p. 64.
      Mother, he's such a sleaze! The way he looked at you!
  4. (informal, uncountable) sleazy material
    a tabloid newspaper full of sleaze

Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

sleaze (third-person singular simple present sleazes, present participle sleazing, simple past and past participle sleazed)

  1. To act or progress in a sleazy manner.
    He sleazed his way over to the women at the bar.
  2. To slander. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Anagrams
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