sludge

noun

Semisolid material such as the type precipitated by sewage treatment.

noun

Mud, mire, or ooze covering the ground or forming a deposit, as on a riverbed.

noun

Finely broken or half-formed ice on a body of water, especially the sea.

noun

An agglutination or aggregation of blood cells forming a semisolid mass that often impedes circulation.

intransitive verb

To agglutinate or aggregate into a semisolid mass; form a sludge. Used of blood cells.

noun

The 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.

noun

The precipitated solid matter in sewage, usually collected in settling-basins in sewage-disposal works after chemical treatment and filtration. Often pressed into cakes.

noun

The sediment, in the form of a mud, which collects in a steam-boiler.

noun

Incorrectly, by abbreviation, an opening in a steam-boiler for the removal of sludge or mud; also, the lid which covers such an opening.

noun

A sand-pump or mud-pumping device for removing sludge from a sink or a bore-hole.