flow

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   move or progress freely as if in a stream

   The crowd flowed out of the stadium

2. 2
   verb

   move along, of liquids

   Water flowed into the cave

3. 3
   verb

   cause to flow

   The artist flowed the washes on the paper

4. 4
   verb

   be abundantly present

   The champagne flowed at the wedding

5. 5
   noun

   The movement of a real or figurative fluid.

   Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads. So roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with such a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on the veranda.

6. 6
   noun

   A formalization of the idea of the motion of particles in a fluid, as a group action of the real numbers on a set.

   The notion of flow is basic to the study of ordinary differential equations.

7. 7
   noun

   Smoothness or continuity.

   The room was small, but it had good symmetry and flow.

8. 8
   noun

   The amount of a fluid that moves or the rate of fluid movement.

   Turn on the valve and make sure you have sufficient flow.

Etymology

From Middle English flowen, from Old English flōwan (“to flow”), from Proto-West Germanic *flōan, from Proto-Germanic *flōaną (“to flow”), from Proto-Indo-European *plōw-, lengthened o-grade form of *plew- (“to fly, flow, run”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian flouje (“to flow”), West Frisian floeie (“to flow”), Dutch vloeien (“to flow”), Norwegian flo (“to flow”). Compare also English float. Not cognate with Latin fluō despite similarity.