slough

When you slough, you get rid of the rough. To slough is to remove an outer layer, like filing dry skin from feet. You can slough away emotions too, like the heebie-jeebies you get thinking about dead skin from people's feet. Ew.

Slough rhymes with "rough." It doesn't sound as though it'll give you a beautiful result, but when you slough away old skin, new skin appears. Snakes shed or slough off their skins as they grow and get rid of icky cells, and humans do the same, though fortunately we don't slough off one big skin as snakes do. Maybe it's best to slough off that mental image with a nicer one.

Definitions of slough

n a hollow filled with mud

Type of:: bog, peat bog
wet spongy ground of decomposing vegetation; has poorer drainage than a swamp; soil is unfit for cultivation but can be cut and dried and used for fuel

n a stagnant swamp (especially as part of a bayou)

Type of:: swamp, swampland
low land that is seasonally flooded; has more woody plants than a marsh and better drainage than a bog

n necrotic tissue; a mortified or gangrenous part or mass

Synonyms:: gangrene, sphacelus

Types:: cold gangrene, dry gangrene, mumification necrosis, mummification
(pathology) gangrene that develops in the presence of arterial obstruction and is characterized by dryness of the dead tissue and a dark brown color; clostridial myonecrosis, emphysematous gangrene, emphysematous phlegmon, gangrenous emphysema, gas gangrene, gas phlegmon, progressive emphysematous necrosis
(pathology) a deadly form of gangrene usually caused by clostridium bacteria that produce toxins that cause tissue death; can be used as a bioweapon

Type of:: pathology
any deviation from a healthy or normal condition

n any outer covering that can be shed or cast off (such as the cast-off skin of a snake)

Type of:: cover, covering, natural covering
a natural object that covers or envelops

v cast off hair, skin, horn, or feathers

Synonyms:: exuviate, molt, moult, shed

Types:: desquamate, peel off
peel off in scales

Type of:: cast, cast off, drop, shake off, shed, throw, throw away, throw off
get rid of

n a hollow filled with mud

n a stagnant swamp (especially as part of a bayou)

n necrotic tissue; a mortified or gangrenous part or mass

n any outer covering that can be shed or cast off (such as the cast-off skin of a snake)

v cast off hair, skin, horn, or feathers

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