the.com/slick
smooth enough to charm you and oily enough to ruin a coastline.
means Slippery-smooth to the touch or the eye — and, of a person, suspiciously polished and persuasive in a way that's clever but not quite trustworthy.
from From Old English 'slician,' to make smooth or sleek, and tied to the same northern Germanic family that gave us 'sleek' itself — words for things glossy, oiled, and frictionless. For centuries it simply meant smooth and glistening; the sense of a person being slick — too smooth, all surface charm and no grip — is a later figurative slide, the same way we still call a smooth-talker 'slippery.'
- oil origin
- named for the glassy sheen oil spreads on water
- con artist
- slang for too-smooth operators since the 1800s
- hair empire
- slick-back styles built whole pomade fortunes
- racing tires
- slicks have zero tread for maximum grip
- comic books
- a glossy magazine was once called a slick
slick magazine — underground publication founded in 1964 by berkeley counterculture artists
slick rick — rapper born richard walters in 1965, known for narrative hip-hop albums