verb

• (transitive) To shed skin or outer layers.
  "This skin is being sloughed."
• (intransitive) To slide off or flake off, as an outer layer, such as skin, might do.
  "A week after he was burned, a layer of skin on his arm sloughed off."
• (transitive, card games) To discard.
  "East sloughed a heart."
• (intransitive, slang, Western US) To commit truancy, be absent from school without permission.

noun

• (British) A muddy or marshy area.
  ""That comed - as you call it - of being arrant asses," retorted the doctor, "and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous slough."
• (Eastern US) A type of swamp or shallow lake system, typically formed as or by the backwater of a larger waterway, similar to a bayou with trees.
  "We paddled under a canopy of trees through the slough."
• (Western US) A secondary channel of a river delta, usually flushed by the tide.
  "The Sacramento River Delta contains dozens of sloughs that are often used for water-skiing and fishing."
• (Canadian Prairies) A small pond, often alkaline, many but not all formed by glacial potholes.
  "Potholes or sloughs formed by a glacier’s retreat from the central plains of North America, are now known to be some of the world’s most productive ecosystems."