Other forms: slithering, slithers, slithered
To slither is to slide along with a twisting movement. The snake slithered, slither down the bank, slithering away.
The twisting is what distinguishes it from sliding, and it is what a legless animal must do to move at all — a snake pushes sideways against the ground. Applied to a person it is unflattering. Note that the word is an alteration of slidder, from the same root as slide.
1verbslitherTo slide along with a twisting movement.
“The children slithered down the muddy bank into the stream.”
slither is a twisting movement.
It is the same word as slide with a twist put into it. The snake slithers: it slides, but winding as it goes.
hooks ontoslide
Middle English slitheren alters slideren, from Old English slidrian, to slip. Slide comes from the same root.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₃sleydʰ- — to slip
Proto-West Germanic
*slidrōn — to slide, slither
Old English
slidrian — to slip, slide, slither
Middle English
slitheren
English, today
slither
Built from
From Middle English slitheren, alteration of slideren (“to slither, creep”), from Old English slidrian (“to slip, slide, slither”), from Proto-West Germanic slidrōn (“to slide, slither”), from Proto-Indo-European h₃sleydʰ- (“to slip”), equivalent to slide + -er. Cognate with Dutch slidderen (“to slip, wriggle, slither”), German schlittern (“to slither, skid”). More at slide.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA