flow
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: flō
ipa: /fləʊ/
ipa: /floʊ/
homophone: floe
homophone: Flo
rhymes: -əʊ
Forms: form: flows
Etymology: From Middle English flowe, from the verb (see below). The psychology sense “state of focus” was coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in 1975.
Senses: glosses: Movement in people or things characterized with a continuous motion, involving either a non solid mass or a multitude.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 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:
glosses: The movement of a real or figurative fluid.
examples: text: The notion of flow is basic to the study of ordinary differential equations.
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: A formalization of the idea of the motion of particles in a fluid, as a group action of the real numbers on a set.
glosses: The rising movement of the tide.
examples: text: The room was small, but it had good symmetry and flow.
glosses: Smoothness or continuity.
examples: text: Turn on the valve and make sure you have sufficient flow.
text: Other devices measure water flow in streams fed by melted ice.
glosses: The amount of a fluid that moves or the rate of fluid movement.
glosses: A flow pipe, carrying liquid away from a boiler or other central plant (compare with return pipe which returns fluid to central plant).
examples: text: 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.
ref: 2014 January 14, Alex Lockwood, “How to achieve a state of flow when running”, in The Guardian:
topics: human-sciences
psychology
sciences
glosses: A mental state characterized by concentration, focus and enjoyment of a given task.
examples: text: Tampons can be small or large, slender or thick. From “slender” to “super”, you can pick the size that matches your flow.
glosses: The emission of blood during menstruation.
examples: text: The production on his new mixtape is mediocre but his flow is on point.
text: 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
ref: 2003, “In da Club”, in Get Rich or Die Tryin', performed by 50 Cent:
qualifier: rap music slang
glosses: The ability to skilfully rap along to a beat.
examples: text: login flow
text: search flow
text: I'm setting up event tracking for a pretty standard, multi-step signup flow, and I'm wondering [...]
ref: 2015, Dan, “Best practices for tracking progress through a sign up flow”, in snowplow-user mailing list:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
software
glosses: The sequence of steps taken in a piece of software to perform some action.
Hyponyms: airflow
antiflow
control flow
dark flow
deal flow
downflow
inflow
inviscid flow
irrotational flow
lava flow
midflow
onflow
outflow
overflow
postflow
preflow
reflow
subflow
upflow
Derived terms: adjusted flow time
aflow
afterflow
air flow
ashflow
autoflow
backflow
baseflow
blood flow
byflow
cash flow
cerebral blood flow
coflow
conflow
contraflow
control-flow graph
counterflow
crossflow
data flow
data flow diagram
deflow
earthflow
ebb and flow
Fanno flow
flowability
flowage
flowant
flow battery
flow blue
flow cell
flow chart
flowchart
flow control
flow cytometer
flowcytometric
flow cytometry
flow diagram
flower
flow field
flowgram
flowgraph
flowgraphy
flowless
flowlike
flowline
flowmap
flowmeter
flowmetric
flow motion
flowmotion
flow network
flow-on
flow on effect
flow-on effect
flowpath
flow production
flow rate
flowrate
flow sheet
flowsheet
flowsnake
flowstone
flow stress
flowthrough
flowtime
flowtop
flow tracer
flow variable
flowy
foreflow
free cash flow
freeflow
geneflow
gene flow
go with the flow
go with the flow of traffic
grainflow
Hubble flow
hyperflow
hyperpycnal flow
in full flow
interflow
isentropic flow
isocratic flow
Knudsen flow
laminar flow
laminar flow hood
lateral flow test
lineflow
mass flow
microflow
mindflow
mudflow
multiflow
nanoflow
newsflow
nonflow
off-flow
only dead fish go with the flow
overflow
page flow
peak flow
peak flow meter
plastic flow
pyroclastic flow
rainflow
return flow
Ricci flow
semiflow
sheet flow
single-flow
slushflow
stemflow
stormflow
streamflow
superflow
throughflow
transverse flow effect
turbulent flow
uniflow
uroflow
wake flow
water flow
waterflow
wordflow
workflow