Flow sb.¹

[f. FLOW v.]

  1.  The action or fact of flowing; movement in a current or stream; an instance or mode of this. Orig. said of liquids, but extended in modern use to all fluids, as air, electricity, etc. † Phrase: To set (the eyes) at flow: to (cause to) weep. Also ‘The course or direction of running waters’ (Admiral Smyth).

a. 1450.  Cov. Myst. (Shaks. Soc.), 43.

1607.  Shaks., Timon, II. ii. 172.

1817.  Shelley, Rev. Islam, XII. xxxvii. 5.

1856.  Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., II. 290. It is only a gentle sound, however, like the flow of a brook; and it rather helped me to sleep last night than otherwise.

1860.  Tyndall, Glac., II. xxv. 362. The tube in fact resembled a vast organ-pipe, whose thunder-notes were awakended by the concussion of the falling water, instead of by the gentle flow of a current of air.

1885.  Watson & Burbury, Math. Th. Electr. & Magn., I. 208. With the conception and language of the two-fluid theory there has been in this short interval a flow of positive electricity in the one direction along the wire, or of negative electricity in the opposite direction, or both such flows have taken place simultaneously.

  b.  Physics.

  Line of flow in Hydrodynamics, an imaginary curve so drawn within a liquid at any instant that at each point of the curve the instantaneous velocity of the liquid is along the tangent. In general a line of flow is not the path of a particle, but varies with the time. But when the motion is steady, i.e., not a function of the time, the lines of flow are fixed, and are paths of particles, being then called stream-lines. Tube of flow in Electricity and Hydrodynamics, an imaginary tube bounded by surfaces across which there is no flow.

1881.  Maxwell, Electr. & Magn., I. 378. Since this tube is bounded by surfaces across which there is no flow, we may call it a Tube of Flow.

1882.  Minchin, Unipl. Kinemat., 150. We can in this way map out the whole region by drawing lines of flow.

  c.  The quantity that flows, volume of fluid. In Hydrodynamics, the volume of fluid which flows through a tube of any given section in a unit of time.

1807.  Med. Jrnl., XXI. 378. Blood, which came out, with a jet, nearly equal to the flow of urine.

1851.  Carpenter, Man. Phys. (ed. 2), 218. The flow of blood into them [Muscles] increases with the use that is made of them.

1877.  W. H. Besant, Hydromech. (ed. 3), 238. The line-integral of the tangential velocity along any line, lying entirely within the fluid, is called the flow along that line.

  d.  concr. That which flows; flowing water. Also, a mass of matter that moves or has moved in a stream.

1802.  Campbell, Hohenlinden, i.

1816.  J. Wilson, City of Plague, I. i.

1833.  Lyell, Princ. Geol., II. 240. Consisting of reiterated flows of lava and showers of scoriæ.

1880.  Miss Bird, Japan, II. 152. The lava ejected by it and the other volcanoes of this coast appears to differ considerably from that of the flows from the flank and summit craters of Mauna Loa on Hawaii.

  2.  Of dress, outlines, etc.: The manner of flowing.

1840.  Dickens, Barn. Rudge, xxxi. No dress but hers had such a flow as that.

1851.  Ruskin, Stones Ven. (1874) I. App. 393. In the folds of the drapery behind him there is a flow like that of waves, but the idea of water is not suggested by any other symbol.

  3.  transf. and fig. Any continuous movement resembling the even flow of a river and connoting a copious supply; an outpouring or stream; esp. of speech.

1641.  J. Jackson, True Evang. T., III. 201. If circumstances, which individuate an action, bee considered, it will easily so appeare, without any flow of words to greaten it.

1733.  Pope, Hor. Sat., II. i. 128.

1775.  Pratt, Liberal Opin. (1783), I. 3. It is horridly hard to stop the pen, when the ideas are on the flow.

1782.  T. A. Mann, in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden), 420. The rupture with France, and above all with Holland, has thrown such a flow of Commerce into this Country as has not been known for above a century past.

1790.  Cowper, On my Mother’s Picture, 64.

1796.  Jane Austen, Pride & Prej., xxxi. They conversed with so much spirit and flow as to draw the attention of Lady Catherine herself, as well as of Mr. Darcy.

1812.  Chalmers, Lett., in Life (1851), I. 296. We have had a flow of forenoon callers, but not a single invited party.

1832.  Ht. Martineau, Hill & Valley, iv. 50. Some experienced people who observed this vast flow of capital towards one point, predicted unpleasant results.

1873.  Black, Pr. Thule, ii. 22. There was something pleasing and ingenuous, too, about this flow of talk.

1891.  Pall Mall G., 18 Nov., 2/1. The Cross flows of traffic.

  4.  The incoming or rise of the tide. Opposed to ebb; often in phrase ebb and flow; see EBB sb.¹

1583.  Greene, Mamillia, Wks. (Grosart), II. 39. Beware of hot loue, Mamillia, for the greatest flowe hath the soonest ebbe.

1597.  Daniel, Civ. Wars, I. 115.

1618.  Bolton, Florus, II. viii. (1636), 118. A narrow Sea having many ebbes, and flowes.

1794.  Burns, Song, ‘Let not woman,’ iii.

1812.  Southey, Omniana, I. 139. The flow drove him [Cortes] upon shore, but he was so exhausted that he was on the point of letting loose his hold and resigning himself to his fate.

1886.  Ruskin, Præterita, I. vi. 177. The Thames tide, with its tossing wherries at the flow, and stranded barges at ebb.

  fig.  1596.  Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., I. ii. 43. The fortune of us that are the moon’s men doth ebb and flow like the sea.

1627–77.  Feltham, Resolves, I. xi. 16. We know not in the flows of our contentedness, what we ourselves are.

1758.  S. Hayward, Serm., Introd. 9. It is a mercy to distinguish between the consolations of the spirit and the flows of affliction.

1865.  Farrar, Chapters on Lang., 270. So deep was the sacredness attached to names that the great ebbs and flows in the tide of Jewish thought may be traced by a diligent study of the names they adopted.

1870.  [see EBB sb. 2.]

  5.  † a. A deluge, flood (obs.). b. An overflowing; applied esp. to the periodical overflow of the Nile, or similar phenomena.

a. 1450.  Cov. Myst. (Shakes. Soc.), 345.

1571.  Campion, Hist. Irel., II. x. (1633), 138. Weigh well the sicke and wounded parts of your common wealth, cure the roote, regard the foundation, the principall pillars, the summer posts, the stone walles, as for the roofe and the tyles, if yee repaire them onely, and suffer the ground worke to perish, a tempest of weather, a flowe will shake your building.

1606.  Shaks., Ant. & Cl., II. vii. 20.

1725.  Pope, Odyss., IV. 99.

1852.  Earp, Gold Col. Australia, 48. The natives look to this periodical flow with as much anxiety as the Egyptians to that of the Nile, but for a very different reason; the aborigines of Australia have not had the intellect to turn their river to any purpose of cultivation.

  6.  Flow of spirits: a. in early use, a sudden access of cheerfulness or exhilaration; b. now chiefly (cf. sense 3) a habitual state of spontaneous cheerfulness.

1715–6.  Pope, Lett. to Blount, Wks. 1824, VIII. 359. The noble power of suffering bravely is as far above that of enterprising greatly, as an unblemished conscience and inflexible resolution are above an accidental flow of spirits, or a sudden tide of blood.

1775.  Sheridan, Duenna, II. ii. My joy at being so agreeably deceived has given me such a flow of spirits!

1824.  Scott, Fam. Lett., 4 March (1894), II. xx. 191. No creature can be entitled to reckon upon such a flow of spirits and regular continuation of good health, and I believe an attempt to comply with such a contract as the newspapers have invented would be a dangerous task both to body and mind.

1834.  West Ind. Sketch-bk., I. xv. 252. He generally manifested great good humour, and, considering his age, a remarkable flow of animal spirits and activity.

  7.  Porcelain Manufacture. A flux for causing the colours to ‘flow’ or blend in firing.

1878.  Ll. Jewitt, Ceramic Art, II. viii. 380. This effect was afterwards imitated, but not so successfully, by means of what is technically called a ‘flow’—that is by introducing a little volatilising salt in the saggar in which the ware is placed and fired.

  † 8.  A flowing or full-bottomed wig. Obs.

1755.  Connoisseur, No. 77, 17 July, ¶ 5. Young counselors may be endued with a sufficient fund of eloquence for the circuits in a smart tye between a bob and a flow, contrived to cover a toupee. Ibid. (1756), No. 110, 4 March, ¶ 2. What rare days were those in Queen Anne’s reign, when the nobility and gentry wore large flaxen flows of thirty guineas price!

  9.  attrib. and Comb., as flow-dike, an open channel to carry off surface water; flow-function = velocity-function; flow (-off) -gate (Metallurgy), an opening through which the molten metal is run out of the mould; flow-line = line of flow (sense 1 b); flow-meadow, one that may be flooded at will.

1812.  Souter, Agric. Surv. Banff., App. 31. To construct *flow dikes.

1882.  Minchin, Unipl. Kinemat., 176. Is it possible to determine a velocity-potential function (or a *flow-function) of the form x²f(^y/_x)?

1881.  Wylie, Iron Founding, 64. When a loam or dry-sand mould is too quickly filled a violent bubbling takes place in the flow-gates, caused not so much from any gas that the mould may generate as by the quick expulsion of the atmospheric air.

1889.  Pract. Iron Founding, iv. 57. In moulds of considerable area, risers or flow off gates are employed.

1882.  Minchin, Unipl. Kinemat., 248. The *flow-lines will then be lines of electrostatic induction in the surrounding dielectric.

1834.  Brit. Husb., I. 528. *Flow-meadows [called also flowing-meadows].