Other forms: oozes, oozing, oozed
To ooze is to flow out very slowly and thickly. Ooze out, oozing mud, blood oozed.
The slowness and thickness together are what the word carries — nothing thin oozes. Figuratively it means giving off a quality in abundance: ooze charm, oozing confidence, which is usually said with suspicion. As a noun, ooze is the soft mud on a sea or river bed, and deep-sea ooze is made largely of the shells of microscopic organisms.
1verboozeTo flow out very slowly and thickly.
“Thick honey oozed out of the cracked jar onto the shelf.”
2nounsoftSoft mud on a sea or river bed.
“The anchor sank into the black ooze at the bottom of the harbour.”
ooze is a slow flowing, or soft mud.
Old English wos meant sap or juice. The verb and the noun are related, and the initial o- is a later development.
Proto-Indo-European
*wóseh₂ — sap
Proto-Germanic
*wōsą
Old English
wōs — sap, froth
Middle English
wose — sap
English, today
ooze
(Noun) Middle English wose (“sap”), from Old English wōs (“sap, froth”), from Proto-Germanic wōsą, from Proto-Indo-European wóseh₂ (“sap”) (cf. Sanskrit वसा (“fat”)). Cognate to Middle Low German (“scum”), Old High German (“rain”), gmq-osw os, oos, ooss, Swedish os. Compare gmq-osw os, oos, Swedish os, Danish os, Norwegian os* (“fumes, vapors, reeking, fug”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire