flux

plural fluxes

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

   By […]the perpetual Flux of the Liquids, a great part of the Liquids is thrown out of the Body.

   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

   1 more example

   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. countableuncountableA state of ongoing change.

   The schedule is in flux at the moment.

   4 more examples

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

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

   1856, Richard Chenevix Trench, On the Death of an Infant

   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.

   2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Picador, →ISBN, pages 55–56

   […] 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.

   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

   Antonyms: stasis

3. countableuncountableA 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. countableuncountablenatural sciencesThe 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. archaiccountableuncountableA disease which causes diarrhea, especially dysentery.

   The next year vvas calamitous, bringing ſtrange fluxes upon men, and murren upon Cattel.

   1670, John Milton, “The Sixth Book”, in The History of Britain, that Part Especially now Call’d England. […], London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for James Allestry, […] , →OCLC, page 245

6. archaiccountableuncountableDiarrhea or other fluid discharge from the body.
7. countableuncountableThe state of being liquid through heat; fusion.

present singular third person fluxes · participle present fluxing · participle past fluxed · past fluxed

1. transitiveTo use flux on.

   You have to flux the joint before soldering.

2. transitiveTo melt.
3. intransitiveTo flow as a liquid.

1. not comparableuncommonFlowing; unstable; inconstant; variable.

   The flux nature of all things here.

   a. 1677, Isaac Barrow, "On Contentment", Sermon XL, in The Theological Works, Volume 2, Clarendon Press, 1818, page 375