Green’s Dictionary of Slang

slide v.

1. in fig. senses of evasion.

(a) (also slide by, slide out) to evade punishment or responsibility; to get by with minimal effort.

[US]Manchester Spy (NH) 17 May n.p.: There is some enquiry among the boys, to know by what hocus pocus means some two or three slid out, after being taken [...] for rioting [...] Some think they were ‘stool pigeons’ and others, that they were greased.
[UK]Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 55: ‘You ate something that disagreed with you last night, didn’t you?’ I said, by way of giving him a chance to slide out of it if he wanted.
[US]G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 66: Say, brother, let me slide this time.
[US](con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 28: Letting stick-up men slide for snitch dope.
[US]B. McCarthy Vice Cop 146: Do fucking nothing—that was the message of government to its law enforcers. Do only what they made you do. Slide by.
J. Bouton Ball Four—the Final PItch 490: ‘Do the people you work with know that you used to be a major league ballplayer?’ [...] ‘It depends on the job. Sometimes I’m able to slide and sometimes I’m not’.

(b) (also slide out) to leave.

[US]Broadway Belle (NY) 12 Mar. n.p.: Took all the ‘brads’ and ‘slid’ away.
[Aus]Melbourne Punch 20 Nov. 3/1: Proposals for a New Slang Dictionary [...] ABSQUATULATE.—Originally written Absquostatulate. Verb neuter: To clear, to vamos, to mizzle, to cut one's stick, to hook it, to slide, to bolt to break out, etc.
[US]Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 18 Mar. 2/4: And the parent stern replied: / ‘There ain’t no harm In a vest; slide out,’ / But the lad refuse to slide .
[US]Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 11 Jan. 3/3: Kelly ‘slid,’ in the vernacular of baseballists .
[Aus]Truth (Sydney) 4 Mar. 1/4: The male article didn’t appear, but has slid to Maoriland.
[US]Detroit Free Press (MI) 6 July 17/1: slide off — leave me alone.
[US]A. Vachss Hard Candy (1990) 20: Take the five and slide.
[UK]A. Wheatle Crongton Knights 239: If any of your bredrens try to slide, I swear, your neck’s spurting untold red’.

(c) (US black) to postpone or forget payment, to obtain credit, esp. in a drug deal.

[US]Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 64: This one is shot four bills and asking to slide.
[US]E. Bunker Mr Blue 390: I can slide in if I can get him a rig.

(d) (US) to escape a criminal charge.

[US]J. Ellroy ‘Stephanie’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 62: A 14-year-old boy attacks two 11-year-old girls. He slides on it.

2. to walk, to travel; modern (UK gang) use (cite 2018), to enter a rival’s territory.

P. Grey ‘’Twixt Night ’n’ Dawn’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 3 Dec. 11/5: I slid (ice-covered streets) on down the street a few doors to sonny’s cafe.
[UK]Wodehouse Uncle Fred in the Springtime 126: ‘You’ve got some luggage in the van, I take it, what? I’ll slide along and see to it’ [...] ‘I’ll be sliding along and seeing about that luggage.’ He slid.
[US]Werthman & Pillavin ‘Gang Members & the Police’ in Bordua Police 77: ‘[A]fter [the police] gone, then everybody just slide on back there and resume where they left off at’.
CGM ‘No Porkie Pies’ 🎵 A hundred man in your vid, when I slide on your block ain’t no one about (where ’dem ’dere?).

3. (orig. US black) to dance [the use of smooth parquet dance-floors].

[US]M.H. Boulware Jive and Sl.
[NZ]Peter Cape ‘Down the Hall on a Saturday Night’ 🎵 I’m gonna climb onto me tractor, / Gonna belt ’er out of the gate, / ’Cause there’s a hop on down at the hall, and / She starts sharp somewhere ’bout 1/2 past 8. / Look at the sheilas cutting the supper / And look at the kids sliding over the floor.
[US]A. Heckerling Clueless [film script] Ready to slide? [...] (Christian and Cher return to the dance floor).

In phrases

do the slide (v.)

see sense 1a above.

let it slide (v.)

to ignore, to dismiss; also as imper., don’t bother, it doesn’t matter.

[US]‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. V 65: Well, if so be you say so, since we’re friends, I’ll let it slide!
[UK]Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 125/2: I think ’t wud be bettir to let it slyde tu-nyght, and du it tu-morro’ nyght i’steead.
[US] ‘English Sl.’ in Eve. Telegram (NY) 9 Dec. 1/5: Let us present a few specimens:– [...] ‘Oh, let it slide.’.
Manchester Wkly Times 27 Mar. 16/3: Song sung by the Chancellor [...] on the Budget [...] ‘I’ve had a deficit for some years — But let it slide!’.
[US]Atlanta Constitution 20 Apr. 4/4: Chaucer may be quoted in support of the slang phrase ‘let it slide.’.
[UK]Sporting Times 11 Apr. 1/4: Only his great power of exhibiting his good sense at the right moment decided him to ‘be a gentleman’ and let it slide.
[US]Tennessean (Nashville, TN) 5 Aug. 4/3: If you’re pained by coughs and chills / [...] / Or by the durn confounded bills — Let ’em slide!
[Ire]Joyce Ulysses 430: Calls for more effort. [...] O, let it slide.
[Aus]D. Stivens Courtship of Uncle Henry 70: He got on my works then but I let it slide.
[US]H. Simmons Corner Boy 18: Maybe she should let it slide just for the night.
[US]E. Torres Carlito’s Way 56: I didn’t want to make more trouble [...] so I let it slide.
[US]E. Torres After Hours 137: The coke will do it every time. I let it [i.e. an insult] slide.
[US]A. Vachss Hard Candy (1990) 20: About ten to twenty years. Even if they let it slide with manslaughter.
[US]‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 23: I’ll let it slide just this once.
[Aus]B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] [H]e let it slide and covered our asses with the lieutenant.
[US]W.D. Myers Lockdown 183: ‘[M]aybe the jury would let him slide because the overall case was weak’.
let slide (v.)

(orig. US) to overlook, to forgive.

[US]Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 29 Nov. 117/4: It appears from what we can lear that Bennett and Gibbs let Davis ‘slide’.
[US] in Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (2nd edn) 241: If California was going to cost the Union so much, it would be better to let California slide.
[US]‘Timothy Titcomb’ Letters to Young People 141: If you can’t ‘come up to the scratch,’ why I must ‘let you slide.’.
[UK]Kentish Gaz. 14 Feb. 8/5: [from Richmond Enquirier, VA] Let peace slide; and let us turn our whole and undivided attention to war.
[US]C.G. Leland ‘Breitmann at a Picnic’ in Hans Breitmann in Europe 283: Since you votes mine dicket, of course you know, / I’m pound to led you shlide und go.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Feb. 5/4: If you knock off alcohol, opium and tobacco […]. Let tea and coffee, too, slide for a bit, and take from 10 to 20 minims of tincture of gelseminum three or four times a day for six or eight weeks you will find life ever so much pleasanter.
J. Conrad ‘The Heart of Darkness’ in Blackwood’s Mag. Feb. 220/2: ‘I had given up worrying myself about the rivets. [...] I said Hang!—and let things slide’.
[UK]‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Each Way’ Sporting Times 24 Mar. 1/4: There being Scotch and seltzer on a tray, / She took half a glass of whisky neat, and let the seltzer slide.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Aug. 14/2: The bill ran to £300 ere instructions could be obtained from headquarters to throw the Maoris indignantly out of gaol, and let the dog-tax slide.
[US]G.R. Chester Five Thousand an Hour Ch. xv: I understand now why Johnny Gamble wants to make a million dollars. As soon as he gets it he’ll propose to Miss Joy, she’ll accept him and let the million slide.
[US]T. Thursday ‘Score Another One for Barnum’ in Argosy All-Story 11 Sept. 🌐 Not being a trouper, we let him slide.
[UK]Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves 103: I saw that it might be best to let the Gandhi motif slide.
[US]R.L. Bellem ‘Sleeping Dogs’ in Spicy Detective Sept. 🌐 ‘In the first place [...] Leneta and I are just good friends— nothing more.’ I let that slide.
[US]J. Thompson Savage Night (1991) 11: I let everything slide when I married Jake.
[US]J. Thompson Texas by the Tail (1994) 123: You just let everything slide.
[US](con. 1940s) Malcolm X Autobiog. (1968) 163: A lot of passenger complaints about me, Pappy had let slide.
[US]W.D. Myers Motown and Didi 23: [H]e was always straight in his dealings. He didn’t let anything slide.
[US]Mack 10 ‘Based on a True Story’ 🎵 Let that slide, and you pay it no mine / Find that hes slappin you all the time.
slide by (v.) (US black)

1. to drop in uninvited, without previous notice.

[US]E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 109: I high sign on couple cats if they slide by.

2. to fool, to deceive.

[UK]J. Mowry Six Out Seven (1994) 334: How one of them suckers ever slide by you?

3. (US black) to survive (barely).

W.D. Myers Darius & Twig 40: ‘She was working four days and now she’s working three. [...] That’s like twenty-five percent of your income gone. We were just sliding by before that’.
slide off/out (v.)

see sense 1 above.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

slidewalk (n.)

see separate entry.

In phrases

slide off a log (v.)

(Aus.) to blunder, to make a mistake.

[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Jun. 6/1: The Standard says that no such [malicious] statements as the Judge refers to appeared in its columns. Someone has slid off a log.
slide one’s jib (v.)

see under jib n.1