Emily Dickinson Lexicon

FLUTE, v.t.

To form flutes or channels in a column.

FLUT-ED, pp. [or adj.]

1. Channeled; furrowed; as a column.
2. In music, thin; fine; flutelike; as, fluted notes. Busby.

FLUT-ING, n.

A channel or furrow in a column; fluted work.

FLUT-ING, ppr.

Channeling; cutting furrows; as in a column.

FLUT-IST, n.

A performer on the flute. Busby.

FLUT'TER, n.

1. Quick and irregular motion; vibration; undulation; as, the flutter of a fan. Addison.
2. Hurry; tumult; agitation of the mind.
3. Confusion; disorder; irregularity in position.

FLUT'TER, v.i. [Sax. floteran; D. flodderen; G. flattern. Qu. Fr. flotter, to waver, from flot, a wave. It is possible that the word is contracted.]

1. To move or flap the wings rapidly, without flying, or with short flights; to hover. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings – Deut. xxxii.
2. To move about briskly, irregularly or with great bustle and show, without consequence. No rag, no scrap of all the beau or wit, / That once so fluttered, and that once so writ. Pope.
3. To move with quick vibrations or undulations; as, a fluttering fan; a fluttering sail. Pope.
4. To be in agitation; to move irregularly; to fluctuate; to be in uncertainty. How long we fluttered on the wings of doubtful success. Howel. His thoughts are very fluttering and wandering. Watts.

FLUT'TER, v.t.

1. To drive in disorder. [Little used.] Shak.
2. To hurry the mind; to agitate.
3. To disorder; to throw into confusion.

FLUT'TER-ED, pp.

Agitated; confused; disordered.

FLUT'TER-ING, n.

The act of hovering, or flapping the wings without flight; a wavering; agitation.

FLUT'TER-ING, ppr.

Flapping the wings without flight or with short flights; hovering; fluctuating; agitating; throwing into confusion.

FLUT'TER-ING-LY, adv.

In a fluttering manner.

FLUT'Y, a.

Soft and clear in tone, like a flute.

FLU'VI-AL-IST, n.

One who explains phenomena by existing streams. Am. Quart.

FLU-VI-AT'IC, or FLU'VI-AL, a. [L. fluviaticus, from fluvius, a river; fluo, to flow.]

Belonging to rivers; growing or living in streams or ponds; as, a fluviatic plant.

FLU'VI-A-TILE, a. [L. fluviatilis.]

Belonging to rivers. Kirwan. [Fluviatic is the preferable word.]

FLUX, a.

Flowing; moving; maintained by a constant succession of parts; inconstant; variable. [Not well authorized.]

FLUX, n. [L. fluxus; Sp. fluxo; Fr. flux; It. flusso; from L. fluo, fluxi.]

1. The act of flowing; the motion or passing of a fluid.
2. The moving or passing of any thing in continued succession. Things in this life, are in a continual flux.
3. Any flow or issue of matter. In medicine, an extraordinary issue or evacuation from the bowels or other part; as, the bloody flux or dysentery, hepatic flux, &c.
4. In hydrography, the flow of the tide. The ebb is called reflux.
5. In metallurgy, any substance or mixture used to promote the fusion of metals or minerals, as alkalies, borax, tartar and other saline matter; or in large operations, limestone or fluor. Alkaline fluxes are either the crude, the white or the black flux. Nicholson. Encyc.
6. Fusion; a liquid state from the operation of heat. Encyc.
7. That which flows or is discharged.
8. Concourse; confluence. [Little used.] Shak.

FLUX, v.t.

1. To melt; to fuse; to make fluid. One part of mineral alkali will flux two of silicious earth with effervescence. Kirwan.
2. To salivate. [Little used.] South.

FLUX-A'TION, n.

A flowing or passing away, and giving place to others. Leslie.

FLUX'ED, pp.

Melted; fused; reduced to a flowing state.

FLUX-I-BIL'I-TY, n.

The quality of admitting fusion.

FLUX'I-BLE, a. [from Low L.]

Capable of being melted or fused, as a mineral.

FLUX-IL'I-TY, n. [Low L. fluxilis.]

The quality of admitting fusion; possibility of being fused or liquefied. Boyle.

FLUX'ION, n. [L. fluxio, from fluo, to flow.]

1. The act of flowing.
2. The matter that flows. Wiseman.
3. Fluxions, in mathematics, the analysis of infinitely small variable quantities, or a method of finding an infinitely small quantity, which being taken an infinite number of times, becomes equal to a quantity given. Harris. In fluxions, magnitudes are supposed to be generated by motion; a line by the motion of a point, a surface by the motion of a line, and a solid by the motion of a surface. And some part of a figure is supposed to be generated by a uniform motion, in consequence of which the other parts may increase uniformly, or with an accelerated or retarded motion, or may decrease in any of these ways, and the computations are made by tracing the comparative velocities with which the parts flow. Encyc. A fluxion is an infinitely small quantity, an increment; the infinitely small increase of the fluent or flowing quantity. Bailey.