scum
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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Also a knighthood and a castle and certainly social status that ensures he won’t be treated like scum.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Blue-green algae, also known as cynobacteria, produces a layer of scum that sits on the water and is toxic to wildlife.
From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026
But not long after the job was complete, the paint began to visibly peel, and the gleaming waters promptly refilled with green pond scum.
From Barron's ● Jun. 21, 2026
“I went through four years of hell by this scum that we had to deal with,” Trump said.
From Salon ● Feb. 6, 2025
I am so hot, I feel as if my skin is covered with a scum of red clay.
From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson
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When this occurs, blue-green algae can form blooms that discolour the water, or produce floating mats or scums on the water's surface.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2025
When this occurs, the algae can form blooms that discolour the water or produce floating mats or scums on the water’s surface.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2024
“You’re in the business of representing scums and trying to make as much money as long as there’s this lapse in the law.”
From Time ● Aug. 6, 2014
They are confined to fresh water, and seldom occur in masses of sufficient size to be seen with the naked eye, usually being found associated with pond scums or other filamentous forms.
From Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany For High Schools and Elementary College Courses by Douglas Houghton Campbell
The scums and sediments make manure hardly inferior to guano.
From The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside by Various
A thick mist scummed the windshields as the 39-car motorcade rolled eastward under the grey sky toward Andau, a scant kilometer from the border.
From Time Magazine Archive
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Boil them together a little while, till it be well scummed, and enough to become gelly.
From The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened by Anne MacDonell
Clarifiers reach the boiling point much quicker, and cannot easily be scummed.
The lake opened out before them, scummed with foam and torn into choppy, white-topped waves among which the logs were tossing.
From The Boss of Wind River by A. M. (Arthur Murray) Chisholm
At the bridge the shingle bank baulks the stream from a clear course into the sea and usually forces it into an ignominious and green scummed pool that slowly filters through the stony wall.
From Wanderings in Wessex An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter by Edric Holmes
The mission stories often guide you through a level’s most unique assassinations, which is a nice gift to players who don’t like engaging in the aggressive, save scumming and trial-and-error obsessiveness those never-be-seen challenges require.
From The Verge ● Jan. 27, 2021
The next day boil it gently, scumming it all the while till no more scum riseth; and if you will clarifie the Liquor with a few beaten whites of Eggs, it will be the clearer.
From The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened by Anne MacDonell
To every pint of juice, add two pounds of powdered loaf-sugar, boiling and scumming it in the same manner as for any other jam or jelly.
From The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families by Mary Eaton
Boil all these together, till the scum be boiled in, not scumming it.
From The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened by Anne MacDonell
"There is a brain that will endure but one scumming."
From The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6 Letters 1821-1842 by Mary Lamb