slip of the tongue
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
An unintentional utterance, often revealing a truth or secret
Literally: a slip of the tongue
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Much of the humour derives from slips of the tongue, an occupational hazard.
‘ Perhaps it was an unfortunate slip of the tongue,’ said Mr Bergg.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “slip of the tongue” mean?
An unintentional utterance, often revealing a truth or secret Literally: a slip of the tongue
Is “slip of the tongue” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.