Teflon
tef·lon
noun
1.
a material used to coat cooking utensils and in industrial applications where sticking is to be avoided
adjective
1.
not to be trusted
- “how extraordinarily slippery a liar the camera is” James Agee
- “they called Reagan the teflon president because mud never stuck to him”
Origin
Trade name, 1940s. From the first letters of tetra- (“four”) + fluoro- (“fluorine”) + -on modeled after nylon etc. From the fluorine count of polytetrafluoroethylene.
Related words
Broader terms
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.