sludge
nounSemisolid material such as the type precipitated by sewage treatment.
nounMud, mire, or ooze covering the ground or forming a deposit, as on a riverbed.
nounFinely broken or half-formed ice on a body of water, especially the sea.
nounAn agglutination or aggregation of blood cells forming a semisolid mass that often impedes circulation.
intransitive verbTo agglutinate or aggregate into a semisolid mass; form a sludge. Used of blood cells.
nounThe more or less viscid mud thrown down from dilute waste soap-liquors of wool-scouring, cotton-bleaching, and dyeing industries when such liquors are treated with crude aluminium sulphate and milk of lime. The remaining effluent is thus in a large measure purified, but the sludge thrown down has usually little value, even as a manure.
nounThe precipitated solid matter in sewage, usually collected in settling-basins in sewage-disposal works after chemical treatment and filtration. Often pressed into cakes.
nounThe sediment, in the form of a mud, which collects in a steam-boiler.
nounIncorrectly, by abbreviation, an opening in a steam-boiler for the removal of sludge or mud; also, the lid which covers such an opening.
nounA sand-pump or mud-pumping device for removing sludge from a sink or a bore-hole.