oil slick

1. 1.

   a thin film of oil floating on top of water (especially crude oil spilled from a ship)

   Broaderslick

Questions about oil slick

What does oil slick mean?

oil slick means "a thin film of oil floating on top of water (especially crude oil spilled from a ship)".

Is oil slick a common word?

oil slick is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.