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flux

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
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Etymology

From Old French flux, from Latin fluxus (“flow”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /flʌks/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ʌks

Noun

flux (countable and uncountable, plural fluxes)

  1. The act of flowing; a continuous moving on or passing by, as of a flowing stream.
    • 1731, John Arbuthnot, An Essay Concerning the Nature of Aliments, and the Choice of Them, According to the Different Constitutions of Human Bodies. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson […], →OCLC:
      By […] the perpetual Flux of the Liquids, a great part of the Liquids is thrown out of the Body.
    • 1991, Mann, H., Fyfe, W., Tazaki, K., & Kerrich, R., Biological Accumulation of Different Chemical Elements by Microorganisms from Yellowstone National Park, USA. Mechanisms And Phylogeny Of Mineralization In Biological Systems, 357-362.
      Investigation of the silica budget for the Upper and Lower Geyser Basins of Yellowstone National Park by Truesdell et al. suggest that the present fluxes of hotspring water and thermal energy may have been continuous for at least the past 10,000 yr.
  2. A state of ongoing change.
    Antonym: stasis
    The schedule is in flux at the moment.
    Languages, like our bodies, are in a continual flux.
    • 1856, Richard Chenevix Trench, On the Death of an Infant:
      Her image has escaped the flux of things, / And that same infant beauty that she wore / Is fixed upon her now forevermore.
    • 2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Picador, →ISBN, pages 55–56:
      Darwin recognized that just as the features of the inorganic world—deltas, river valleys, mountain chains—were brought into being by gradual change, the organic world similarly was subject to constant flux.
    • 2022 September 19, Alan Cowell, “From Coronation to Funeral: Bookends to the Life of a Queen, and a Generation”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:
      […] her eldest son, now King Charles III, has assumed the monarch’s role […] as the anchor of a nation’s identity in troubled times of change and flux.
  3. A chemical agent for cleaning metal prior to soldering or welding.
    It is important to use flux when soldering or oxides on the metal will prevent a good bond.
  4. (physics) The rate of transfer of energy (or another physical quantity), especially an electric or magnetic field, through a given surface.
    That high a neutron flux would be lethal in seconds.
  5. (archaic) A disease which causes diarrhea, especially dysentery.
  6. (archaic) Diarrhea or other fluid discharge from the body.
  7. The state of being liquid through heat; fusion.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

flux (third-person singular simple present fluxes, present participle fluxing, simple past and past participle fluxed)

  1. (transitive) To use flux on.
    You have to flux the joint before soldering.
  2. (transitive) To melt.
  3. (intransitive) To flow as a liquid.

Adjective

flux (not comparable)

  1. (uncommon) Flowing; unstable; inconstant; variable.
    • a. 1677, Isaac Barrow, "On Contentment", Sermon XL, in The Theological Works, Volume 2, Clarendon Press, 1818, page 375:
      The flux nature of all things here.
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Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin flūxus. Doublet of fluix.

Pronunciation

Noun

flux m (plural fluxos)

  1. flow

Further reading

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Dutch

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Latin flūxus via French and English.

Noun

flux m (plural fluxen, diminutive fluxje n)

  1. flux

Etymology 2

See fluks.

Adjective

flux (comparative fluxer, superlative meest flux or fluxt)

  1. obsolete spelling of fluks

French

Old French

Romanian

Spanish

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