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Glite Dictionary
🤫 To add quietly 🤕 To fall accidentally
to slip in

to slip in

5 4.1
Lose your balance and fall on wet or muddy ground
  • phrasal verb
  • /slɪp ɪn/
translation icon : resbalarse
  • Brenna tried not to make any noise, but she slipped in the mud and made a loud splatter anyway.
  • slipped in the mud
  • slipped in a puddle
  • slipping in the snow

And I mean, we were slipping and sliding in blood.

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Examples

  • While walking through the park, he slipped in a puddle and fell onto the grass.

  • He had a number of subsequent falls, sliding down mud banks, tripping over stones, or slipping in wet grass.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • Poor Lonny had slipped and fallen in.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • Twenty-five years old, and he goes and slips over in a bathroom.

    The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

  • I was careful not to slip in the slush on my crutches.

    Blog text (26)

  • She was careful on the icy steps, but she still slipped in the snow and landed hard.

  • He was warned about the slippery floor, but he still slipped in the corridor and fell.

Synonyms

to fall down
vsto slip in
250 1.0

Suddenly move from a standing position to the ground or a lower level

is tied to slippery wet or muddy ground rather than any sudden drop
to stumble
vsto slip in
129 1.6

To trip or lose balance while walking and almost fall

is specifically about balance loss on wet or muddy ground rather than unsteadiness
to fall over
vsto slip in
67 1.0

To lose your balance or stop being steady and end up on the ground

is mainly caused by wet or muddy surfaces that make balance fail
to trip over
vsto slip in
49 1.9

Lose your balance when your foot hits or catches on something while walking

is caused by wet or muddy surfaces rather than hitting an obstacle
to trip over one's own feet
vsto slip in
  • Informal
1 6.8

To stumble or fall because you are clumsy

is due to external wet or muddy ground rather than internal clumsiness

Antonyms

to recover
748 2.5

Get back to a normal state after a loss, for example health or money

to steady
41 3.4

To make yourself or something stop moving

How Badly

to crash
481 2.2
tumble
46 2.9
to fall
∞ 1.0
to slip in
5 4.1
to stumble
129 1.6

Surface Forms

slip in infinitive
slipped in past
slipped in past participle
slipping in present participle
slips in third person singular

Morphology

slip + in

The core meaning 'to lose one's balance and fall (into something)' is largely compositional from 'slip' (to slide/lose balance) + 'in' (into), so a learner who knows those senses could plausibly infer this meaning. However, 'slip' and the phrasal pattern are highly polysemous (e.g., 'slip in' can mean 'enter quietly' or 'insert covertly'), so without contextual cues the specific sense of falling is not fully predictable.

Etymology

Slip in comes from the image of slip + in: your foot sliding into mud or wet grass and making you lose your balance and fall, so it means 'to lose one's balance and fall'.