[f. FLUSH v.2 + -ING1.]
1. The action of the verb FLUSH in various senses.
† a. A rushing or splashing (of water). Obs.
1573. Twyne, Æneid., X. D d iv b. His monstrous saluage lims through froth, through fome with flushing launch.
b. The cleansing (of a sewer, etc.) by a rush of water.
1853. Archil. Publ. Soc. Dict., Flushing.
1884. Times (weekly ed.), 14 Nov., 12/2. The flushing of sewers is … a most important part, of the rapid removal of refuse.
c. Of a plant: The sending out of new shoots.
1810. Scott, Lady of Lake, III. xvi.
| The autumn winds rushing | |
| Waft the leaves that are searest, | |
| But our flower was in flushing, | |
| When blighting was nearest. |
1894. Times, 6 April, 4/6. [Tea] plants exhibiting great difference in form and luxuriance of growth and flushing.
2. A sudden flowing (of blood to the face); a wave (of heat); hence, reddening, redness.
1589. R. Harvey, Pl. Perc., 22. Walke about, and coole this flushing in the face, lest it fume vp, and make you braine sicke.
1602. Shaks., Ham., I. ii. 155.
| Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears | |
| Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, | |
| She married. |
1677. Lond. Gaz., No. 1180/4. A tall slender Man, with a great flushing in his face.
1731. Arbuthnot, Aliments, i. § 2. 9. The Signs of the Functions of the Stomach being deprav’d, are … a Flushing in the Countenance, Foulness of the Tongue.
1803. Med. Jrnl., X. 11. Its approaches are marked by head-ach, lassitude, rigors, flushings of heat, furred tongue, and thirst.
1875. H. C. Wood, Therap. (1879), 348. Local flushings caused by small doses of the poison.
3. A flush or wave (of emotion, success, etc.).
a. 1679. T. Goodwin, Wks., V. II. 163. It was not properly a Passion, which is a subitaneous flushing.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 351, 12 April, ¶ 15. That secret Intoxication of Pleasure, with all those transient Flushings of Guilt and Joy, which the Poet represents in our first Parents upon their eating the forbidden Fruit.
1775. S. J. Pratt, Liberal Opinions (1783), IV. 78. This strange mortal, who was so truly elevated by the present flushings of his prosperity, that he said and did, a thousand things, which in a calmer state of mind than I then enjoyed, might have inspired merriment.
4. attrib. and Comb.: as flushing cistern, gate, machine; also flushing-rim (House-plumbing), ‘a hollow rim pierced with holes surrounding a basin, through which water can be turned into the basin to flush it out’ (Cent. Dict.); flushing-wheel = flush-wheel.
1894. Daily News, 9 Oct., 5/2. To raise the capacity of *flushing cisterns from two to three gallons.
1856. Prec. Inst. Civ. Eng., XVI. 43. *Flushing Machines, for cleansing house drains and sewers.
1884. G. E. Waring, The Principles and Practice of House-Drainage, in Century Mag., XXIX. Dec., 263/1. The closet is supplied with water through an ordinary *flushing-rim.
1884. Health Exhib. Catal., 98/2. Automatic *Flushing Wheel for utilizing waste water from Baths.
