From Middle Englishsloor(“thin or fluid mud”). Cognate with Middle Low Germansluren(“to trail in mud”). Also related to dialectal Norwegiansløra(“to be careless, to scamp, dawdle”), Danishsløre(“to wobble, be loose”) (especially for wheels); compare Old Norseslóðra(“to drag oneself along”).
(an extremely offensive term): Influenced by various compounds of sense 1 such as racial slur, ethnic slur, etc.
1989 December 10, Zane Gilstrap, “Speculations About Why We're Gay”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 22, page 5:
It seems that according to their best guess, our mother's [sic] drank too much coffee or alcohol, took drugs, or were under stress during the period of our conception. Underlying all this speculation is, of course, the big slur: we're some kind of unnatural or abnormal product, outside of humanity and their religions.
The undeserved slur which he had cast on my management of the household did not, I am happy to say, prevent me from returning good for evil to the best of my ability, by complying with his request as readily and respectfully as ever.
Manganism has been known about since the 19th century, when miners exposed to ores containing manganese, a silvery metal, began to totter, slur their speech and behave like someone inebriated.
(music) To play legato or without separate articulation; to connect (notes) smoothly.
1817, Thomas Busby, A Dictionary of Music, Theoretical and Practical:
Notes , the stems of which are joined together by cross lines, as in united quavers , semiquavers , & c . or notes over the heads of which a curve is drawn, to signify that they are to be slurred
1678, R[alph] Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe: The First Part; wherein All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted; and Its Impossibility Demonstrated, London:[…]Richard Royston,[…], →OCLC:
they do not only impudently slur the gospel, according to the history and the letter, in making it no better than a romantical legend[…]
To cover over; to disguise; to conceal; to pass over lightly or with little notice.