flux

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

• IPA^(key): /flʌks/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌks

flux (countable and uncountable, plural fluxes)

1. The act of flowing; a continuous moving on or passing by, as of a flowing stream.
   • Arbuthnot

     By the perpetual flux of the liquids, a great part of them is thrown out of the body.

   • Mann, H., Fyfe, W., Tazaki, K., & Kerrich, R. (1991). 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.

   The schedule is in flux at the moment.

   Languages, like our bodies, are in a continual flux.

   • Trench

     Her image has escaped the flux of things, / And that same infant beauty that she wore / Is fixed upon her now forevermore.

   • Felton
   • 2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Picador, →ISBN, page 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.

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) through a given surface, specifically electric flux, magnetic flux.

   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.

• (state of ongoing change): stasis

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.

• fluxion

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.

• fluxional

• fluctuant

From Latin fluxus.

• (Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA^(key): /ˈfluks/

flux m (plural fluxos)

1. flow

• fluir

• “flux” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Borrowed from Latin fluxus.

• IPA^(key): /fly/

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

flux m (plural flux)

1. flow (the flow of the tide)

• “flux” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

flux m (oblique plural flux, nominative singular flux, nominative plural flux)

1. diarrhea (rapid passage of fecal matter through the bowels)

Borrowed from French flux.

flux n (plural fluxuri)

1. flow (the flow of the tide)

Borrowed from French flux

• IPA^(key): /fluks/

flux m (plural fluxes)

1. (card playing) flush (hand consisting of all cards with the same suit)
2. (Venezuela, colloquial, Dominican Republic, dated) suit (set of clothes)

   Synonyms: terno, traje

• “flux” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.