Flue sb.²

Also 6 floow, 7–9 flew. [of unknown origin; cf. mod.Flem. vluwe of same meaning (Franck s.v. fluwecl) which, like the Du. fluweel and med.L. fluetum velvet, is believed to be derived from Fr. velu hairy, downy. But see FLUFF sb.¹]

  † 1.  A woolly or downy substance; down, nap. Also pl. bits of down. Obs.

1589.  Fleming, Georg. Virg., IV. 69. Towels with nap shorne off (The floow or roughnes shorne away for feare to hurt his handes).

1607.  Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 213. Heliogabalus lay upon a bed filled with flew or wool of Hares.

1743.  Lond. & Country Brew., II. (ed. 2), 100. They will be as big as Lice with Rags or Flews about them.

1823.  Crabb, Technol. Dict., Flue (Husband.) the soft down from feathers, and the skins from rabbits, &c.

  2.  esp. The light flocculent substance formed by floating particles of cotton, down, etc.; fluff.

1796.  Mrs. Glasse, Cookery, xxvii. 387. Directions to the Housemaid. Always when you sweep a room, throw a little wet sand all over it, and that will gather up all the flew and dust, prevent it from rising, clean the boards, and save the bedding, pictures, and all other furniture from dust or dirt.

1814.  Ware, in Trans. Med. & Chirurg. Soc., 256. Others as like the flue that is swept from bedrooms.

1837.  Howitt, Rur. Life, III. iii. (1862), 242. The parents had too much love for their children to subject them to the daily incarceration amid heat and dust and flue from the cotton.

1860.  Dickens, Uncomm. Trav., vi. Its old-established flue under its old-established four-post bedsteads in its old old-established airless rooms.

1886.  E. Hodder, Earl Shaftesbury, I. iii. 139. Sick, with aching backs and inflamed ankles from the constant stooping, with fingers lacerated from scraping the floors; parched and suffocated by the dust and flue—the little slaves toiled from morning till night.

  b.  transf. Any light floating particle. Cf. FLOW sb.³

c. 1825.  Beddoes, Poems, Torrismond, I. iii.