effluent

From French effluent, from Latin effluens, effluentis.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɛfluːənt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɛfluənt/

effluent (not comparable)

1. Flowing out; outflowing.
   • 1860, Benjamin Franklin Barrett, Letters on the Divine Trinity: Addressed to Henry Ward Beecher:

     But while the effluent beams of the sun, and their quickening power in the natural sphere, furnish a good illustration of my idea of the Holy Spirit, I may, perhaps, illustrate the idea still better by a reference to human thoughts and affections […]

effluent (countable and uncountable, plural effluents)

1. (countable) A stream that flows out, such as from a lake or reservoir; an outflow; effluence.

   The landscape was dotted with reservoirs and many many effluent streams.

2. (uncountable) Sewage or waste water discharged into a natural body of water.

   Residents have little control over the industrial effluent that pollutes their rivers.

   • 2014 June 14, “It's a gas”, in The Economist, volume 411, number 8891:

     One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains. Isolating a city’s effluent and shipping it away in underground sewers has probably saved more lives than any medical procedure except vaccination.

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effluent (feminine effluente, masculine plural effluents, feminine plural effluentes)

1. effluent

effluent m (plural effluents)

1. effluent

• “effluent”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

effluent

1. third-person plural future active indicative of effluō