flow

• enPR: flō
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /fləʊ/
  • (General American) IPA^(key): /floʊ/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (Southern England):

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• Homophones: floe, Flo
• Rhymes: -əʊ

From Middle English flowe, from the verb (see below). The psychology sense “state of focus” was coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in 1975.

flow (countable and uncountable, plural flows)

1. Movement in people or things characterized with a continuous motion, involving either a non solid mass or a multitude.
2. The movement of a real or figurative fluid.
   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the residents of Asquith for permitting a sandy and generally disgraceful condition of the roads. So roundly did he vituperate the inn management in particular, and with such a loud flow of words, that I trembled lest he should be heard on the veranda.

3. (mathematics) A formalization of the idea of the motion of particles in a fluid, as a group action of the real numbers on a set.

   The notion of flow is basic to the study of ordinary differential equations.

4. The rising movement of the tide.
5. Smoothness or continuity.

   The room was small, but it had good symmetry and flow.

6. The amount of a fluid that moves or the rate of fluid movement.

   Turn on the valve and make sure you have sufficient flow.

   Other devices measure water flow in streams fed by melted ice.

7. A flow pipe, carrying liquid away from a boiler or other central plant (compare with return pipe which returns fluid to central plant).
8. (psychology) A mental state characterized by concentration, focus and enjoyment of a given task.
   • 2014 January 14, Alex Lockwood, “How to achieve a state of flow when running”, in The Guardian‎:

     The point about flow is that it is enjoyable. As research has shown "the more often athletes experienced flow, the happier they were." But the second is that entering flow actually improves performance.

9. The emission of blood during menstruation.

   Tampons can be small or large, slender or thick. From “slender” to “super”, you can pick the size that matches your flow.

10. (rap music slang) The ability to skilfully rap along to a beat.

    The production on his new mixtape is mediocre but his flow is on point.

    • 2003, “In da Club”, in Get Rich or Die Tryin', performed by 50 Cent:

      Now shawty said she feelin' my style, she feelin' my flow […] / My flow, my show brought me the dough / That bought me all my fancy things

11. (software) The sequence of steps taken in a piece of software to perform some action.

    login flow

    search flow

    • 2015, Dan, “Best practices for tracking progress through a sign up flow”, in snowplow-user mailing list‎:

      I'm setting up event tracking for a pretty standard, multi-step signup flow, and I'm wondering [...]

• (continuity): See also Thesaurus:continuity

• (antonym(s) of “movement of the tide”): ebb
• (antonym(s) of “continuity”): See also Thesaurus:discontinuity

• flow on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Flow (psychology) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

From Middle English flowen, from Old English flōwan (“to flow”), from Proto-West Germanic *flōan, from Proto-Germanic *flōaną (“to flow”), from Proto-Indo-European *plōw-, lengthened o-grade form of *plew- (“to fly, flow, run”).

Cognate with Saterland Frisian flouje (“to flow”), West Frisian floeie (“to flow”), Dutch vloeien (“to flow”), Norwegian flo (“to flow”). Compare also English float. Not cognate with Latin fluō despite similarity.

flow (third-person singular simple present flows, present participle flowing, simple past and past participle flowed)

1. (intransitive) To move as a fluid from one position to another.

   Rivers flow from springs and lakes.

   Tears flow from the eyes.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC:

     Wrex: I need to get my blood flowing. Find me something to kill!

2. (intransitive) To proceed; to issue forth; to emanate.

   Wealth flows from industry and economy.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker ; nd by Robert Boulter ; nd Matthias Walker, , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC:

     Those thousand decencies that daily flow / From all her words and actions.

3. (intransitive) To move or match smoothly, gracefully, or continuously.

   The writing is grammatically correct, but it just doesn't flow.

   • 1697, Virgil, “Dedication”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:

     Virgil […] is […] sweet and flowing in his hexameters.

4. (intransitive) To have or be in abundance; to abound, so as to run or flow over.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Joel 3:18:

     […] in that day […] the hils shall flow with milke […]

   • 1845, John Wilson, The Genius and Character of Robert Burns:

     the exhilaration of a night that needed not the influence of the flowing bowl

5. (intransitive) To hang loosely and wave.

   a flowing mantle

   flowing locks

   • 1788, Publius [pseudonym; Alexander Hamilton], “Number LXVII”, in The Federalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New Constitution, , volume II, New York, N.Y.: J. and A. M‘Lean, , →OCLC, page 222:

     […] the imperial purple flowing in his train.

6. (intransitive) To rise, as the tide; opposed to ebb.

   The tide flows twice in twenty-four hours.

   come in

   come up

   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, ”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     The river hath thrice flowed, no ebb between.

7. (transitive, computing) To arrange (text in a wordprocessor, etc.) so that it wraps neatly into a designated space; to reflow.
8. (transitive) To allow (a liquid) to flow.
   • 1932, Carl Ernest Reistle, Paraffin and Congealing-Oil Problems, volumes 340-349, page 45:

     The action is usually progressive, and as a certain amount of oil is flowed from the tubing it lowers the pressure on the remaining oil and liberates more gas, thus causing additional oil to flow from the tubing.

9. (transitive) To cover with water or other liquid; to overflow; to inundate; to flood.
10. (transitive) To cover with varnish.
11. (intransitive) To discharge excessive blood from the uterus.

Uncertain. Perhaps from Old Norse flói (“a large bay, firth”), see floe. Compare Scots flow (“peat-bog, marsh”), Icelandic flói (“marshy ground”).

flow (plural flows)

1. (Scotland) A bog or mire, especially a rough, waterlogged one.
   • 1794, John Sinclair, The Statistical Account of Scotland, volume 10, page 328:

     […] there are other extensive mosses in this district, commonly called flowes, which it is not probable ever will, or ever can be, converted into arable land. Some of these flowes are found to be 20, 25, or 30 feet deep, and are, besides, such a dead level, that the water has little or no descent; and even supposing they should be cast, or burnt to the bottom, standing pools of dirty water could only stand in their place.

   • 1871, Alexander Boswell, Poetical Works, page 213:

     Ye'll stick in some flow, Or, ye'll melt in a thow

   • 1895, Crockett, Moss-Hags page xlii:

     Had been roughly laid with bog-wood dug from the flowes,

   • 1896, Proudlock, Borderland Muse, page 8:

     Dandering o'er ferney knowes, [...] Springing o'er bogs an' flowes, [...]

   • 1898 July 23, Shetland News, quoted in the EDD:

     If dey wirna a day apo' da flow dan he wis nae man's bishaness.

• flow-bog, flow-moss

• “flow, n.².”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• “flow, v., n.¹”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.
• Joseph Wright, editor (1900), “FLOW”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: , volume II (D–G), London: Henry Frowde, , publisher to the English Dialect Society, ; New York, N.Y.: G P Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC. (suggests the origin is Norwegian dialectal floe "pool of water in swampy ground; swamp")

• Wolf, fowl, wolf

• Audio:

  (file)

flow m (plural flows)

1. (rap, music) flow
2. flow (style)

Unadapted borrowing from English flow.

flow m

1. (colloquial) flow (the ability to rap skillfully)

Unadapted borrowing from English flow.

• IPA^(key): /ˈflou/
• Rhymes: -ou

flow m

1. (colloquial) flow (the ability to rap skillfully)
2. (colloquial, uncommon) flow (as in go with the flow)

   ir con el flow ― go with the flow