MEANING
1. Air flowing behind a moving object, including air driven backward by an aircraft’s propeller.
2. A path of example or influence that someone follows behind another person or movement.
3. To travel closely behind another moving vehicle or rider to benefit from reduced air resistance.
Use it for
describing disturbed air behind a moving vehicle; showing the physical wake of an aircraft; making fast movement tangible through airflowLinks a precise moving-air image with following the path opened by another person or movement. Writing functions: Motion and influence.
Words that belong together
- in a vehicle’s slipstream
- an aircraft’s slipstream
- the slipstream behind a car
On the page
Dry leaves lifted into the truck’s slipstream and settled after it had gone.
The ground crew waited clear of the aircraft’s slipstream.
A generation of essayists emerged in the critic’s slipstream without sharing all her conclusions.
The smaller journals prospered in the slipstream of the new literary movement.
She slipstreamed the leading rider before moving out to overtake.
Word forms
- Base
- slipstream
- Past tense
- slipstreamed
- Past participle
- slipstreamed
- Present participle
- slipstreaming
Usage notes
Noun: slipstream/slipstreams. Verb: slipstream, slipstreams, slipstreamed, slipstreamed, slipstreaming; future will slipstream. Figurative use often in someone’s slipstream. Register: neutral. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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