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flow

Pronunciation: /ˈfləʊ̯/

The English word “flow” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  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.
  3. A formalization of the idea of the motion of particles in a fluid, as a group action of the real numbers on a set.
  4. The rising movement of the tide.
  5. Smoothness or continuity.
  6. The amount of a fluid that moves or the rate of fluid movement.
  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. A mental state characterized by concentration, focus, and enjoyment of a given task.
  9. The emission of blood during menstruation.
  10. The ability to skillfully rap along to a beat.
  11. The sequence of steps taken in a piece of software to perform some action.

verb

  1. To move as a fluid from one position to another.
  2. To proceed; to issue forth; to emanate.
  3. To move or match smoothly, gracefully, or continuously.
  4. To have or be in abundance; to abound, so as to run or flow over.
  5. To hang loosely and wave.
  6. To rise, as the tide; opposed to ebb.
  7. To arrange (text in a wordprocessor, etc.) so that it wraps neatly into a designated space; to reflow.
  8. To allow (a liquid) to flow.
  9. To cover with water or other liquid; to overflow; to inundate; to flood.

Etymology

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

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.