Fluent

a. and sb. Also 6–7 fluant. [ad. L. fluent-em, pr. pple. of fluĕre to flow.]

  A.  adj.

  1.  That flows, flowing.

1607.  Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 304. Whatsoeuer [water] is moueably fluent, is lesse subiect to poyson then that which standeth still.

1684.  trans. Bonet’s Merc. Compit., VIII. 272. Ligatures … seem to … impell the fluent bloud.

1719.  D’Urfey, Pills (1872), III. 97.

1854.  Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XV. II. 415. The waters of those rivers or streams which are permanent or fluent all the year.

1893.  Thomas A. Janvier, The Evolution of New York, in Harper’s Mag., LXXXVI. May, 815/2. The burning moment when the metal, now hardened, came fluent from the crucible and the casting of the city was begun.

  b.  transf. and fig.;; esp. of things compared to a stream or to the tide.

1643.  H. More, Song of Soul, II. ii. III. xxvi.

1649.  G. Daniel, Trinarch., Hen. V., ccxxviii.

1729.  Savage, Wanderer, III. 5.

1842.  De Quincey, Cicero, Wks. VI. 227. The fluent intercourse with this island, and the multiplied interconnections of individual towns with Roman grandees, aggravated the facilities of making charges.

1854.  J. S. C. Abbott, Napoleon (1855), II. xxvii. 502. Enormous masses of cavalry, in fluent and refluent surges, trampled into the bloody mire the dying and the dead.

  † c.  Flowing readily as a consequence or inference. Obs.

1619.  W. Sclater, Expos. 1 Thess., 244. In ancient Diuinitie the inference was fluent. Ibid., 567. See if from the fact of God, mentioned by the Apostle, it runnes not as fluent.

  2.  Having the property or capacity of flowing: easily; ready to flow; fluid, liquid. Of a painter: Producing a fluid or liquid effect.

1601.  R. Johnson, Relations of the Most Famous Kingdoms, etc. (1611), 5. The people of the South haue their bloud thinne and fluent, like to that of the Hare and Hart, and denoteth feare.

a. 1626.  Bacon, Physiol. Rem., Wks. 1857, III. 814. When it is not malleable, but yet is not fluent, but stupified.

1686.  W. Harris, trans. Lemery’s Course Chym., II. xiii. (ed. 3), 523. This Fermentation subtilizes and attenuates the viscous Parts of the Rose, and turns them into a thin fluent Liquor.

1822.  Examiner, 347/2. Backhuysen is often heavy in his shadows, but admirably fluent in the representation of water and air.

1844.  Mrs. Browning, Drama of Exile, Poems (1850), I. 77.

1877.  Dixon, Diana, Lady Lyle, I. III. iii. 190. A fairy pool of water lies, fluent and opalesque, under an amber slab.

  b.  fig. and of non-material things: Fluid, liable to change; not stable, fixed, or rigid.

1648.  W. Montagu, Miscellanea Spiritualia: or Devout Essaies, I. vi. § 2. 57. Such an extraction Daniel counselled the King to draw out of his perishable felicity, and by this Method, while the matter of worldly goods remaineth fluent and transitory, there may be great utility derived even from the consideration of these qualities.

1691.  Ray, Creation, 33. Motion being a fluent Thing, and one Part of its Duration being absolutely independent upon another.

1814.  Wordsw., Excursion, IV. 732.

1851.  Helps, Comp. Solit., x. (1874), 170. The general body of opinion is very fluent, and, at last, everything has a hearing.

1872.  M. Collins, Two Plunges for Pearl, I. 196. English society is curiously fluent: every now and then the son of an innkeeper or pawnbroker becomes premier or primate.

  3.  transf. a. Of hair: Growing in abundant quantity and falling in graceful curves; flowing.

1607.  Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 566. Put unto the head of any one whose hairs are too fluent and abundant.

1866.  G. Meredith, Vittoria, i. A fluent black moustache ran with the curve of the upper lip, and lost its line upon a smooth olive cheek.

1872.  Tennyson, Gareth & Lynette, 454.

  b.  Moving easily or gracefully; not stiff or rigid.

1869.  Blackmore, Lorna D., x. I never had dreamed of such delicate motion, fluent, and graceful, and ambient, soft as the breeze flitting over the flowers, but swift as the summer lightning.

  † 4.  Flowing freely or abundantly. Also, abounding in. Obs.

1590.  Greene, Orl. Fur., Wks. (Rtldg.), 98/1.

1611.  Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., VII. xii. § 10. 222. Destitute of vertue and fluent in vice, as any of these his preceding Kings.

1639.  Daniel, Ecclus. xliii. 53. A Cloud, swolne w^th a fluent raine.

c. 1682.  J. Collins, Making of Salt in Eng., 2. At Namptwich, they have one Pit within the Town, and two without, sufficient to serve the Fourth part of the Nation the Bryne being so fluent.

  b.  Giving freely, generous. Obs. exc. dial.

1603.  Breton, Packet Mad Lett. (Grosart), 6/1. Being a sonne more bound then any through the fluent bounty of a Father’s loue.

1639.  Saltmarsh, Policy, 237. If you bee fluent in one kinde, bee sparing in another.

1887.  Darlington, Folk-speech S. Cheshire, Gloss., Fluent, liberal. Often with some defining words as ‘fluent i’ givin’.’

  5.  Of speech, style, etc.: Flowing easily and readily from the tongue or pen.

1625.  Bacon, Ess., Youth & Age (Arb.), 263. Such as is a fluent and Luxuriant Speech; which becomes Youth well, but not Age.

1660.  Wood, Life (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), I. 360. For some time, till the Act of Conformity was published, the Presbyterian preachers labored much to keep their disciples togeather and to strive by their fluent praying and preaching to make that way used by the prelaticall party ridiculous.

1670–1.  Narborough, Jrnl., in Acc. Sev. Late Voy., I. (1711), 70. Their Language is much in the Throat, and not very fluent, but uttered with good deliberation.

1728.  Pope, The Dunciad, III. 197.

1828.  D’Israeli, Chas. I., I. ii. 21. Nor could he know that the habitual reserve of the prince orginated, in great part, in the pain which conversation occasions him whose speech is not fluent.

1866.  Geo. Eliot, F. Holt (1868), 63. Esther had that excellent thing in woman, a soft voice with a clear, fluent utterance.

  b.  Of a speaker, etc.: Ready in the use of words, able to express oneself readily and easily in speech or writing.

1589.  Warner, Alb. Eng., V. xxvii. 115.

1610.  Heywood, Gold. Age, I. i. Wks. (1874), III. 5.

1737.  Pope, Hor. Epist., II. i. 278.

1784.  Cowper, Task, IV. 17.

1832.  Ht. Martineau, Ireland, i. 6. Though some came out ready readers, and most fluent story-tellers, there was but little knowledge even among the oldest of them.

1882.  F. W. Farrar, Dean Stanley as a Preacher, in Contemporary Review, XLII. Nov., 807 As a speaker, for instance, Dean Stanley was by no means fluent. He spoke slowly and hesitatingly. He often paused to find the right word. He often deviated into the most unadorned and colloquial English.

  6.  Math. In the doctrine of fluxions: Continuously increasing or decreasing by an infinitesimal quantity.

1734.  Berkeley, Analyst, § 45, Wks. 1871, III. 287. Each foregoing is a fluent quantity having the following one for its fluxion?

1807.  Hutton, Course Math., II. 276. Suppose the right line mn to move, from the position AB, continually parallel to itself, with any continued motion, so as to generate the fluent or flowing rectangle ABQP.

  transf.  1844.  Gladstone, Glean. (1874), V. ii. 82–3. As if the Church had then attained a fixity so absolute that it might be eliminated, like a constant quantity, from among those fluent materials with which history is conversant.

  B.  sb.

  † 1.  A stream, a current of water. Obs.

  [In the first two quots. strictly a distinct word ad. L. fluent-um.]

1598.  Yong, Diana, 308. And many more I learned in the fertill fields, which the great riuer Duerus with his cristalline fluents doth water in the Countie of Saint Stephen.

1616.  Chapman, Homer’s Hymn to Venus, 378.

1705.  J. Philips, Blenheim, 239.

  2.  Math. The variable quantity in fluxions which is continually increasing or decreasing.

1706.  W. Jones, Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos, 226. Hence the Celerity of the Motion is very properly called Fluxion, and the Quantity generated Fluent.

1819.  G. Peacock, View Fluxional Calculus, 23. Where the fluent or integral is expressed by an algebraic function.

1878.  W. K. Clifford, Dynamic, ii. 62.

  3.  nonce-use. Something fluent or liable to change.

1836.  Coleridge, Lit. Rem., II. 309. The guardian, as a fluent, is less than the permanent which he is to guard. He is the temporary and mutable mean, and derives his whole value from the end.