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.
   • 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:

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

   • 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. A state of ongoing change.

   Antonym: stasis

   The schedule is in flux at the moment.

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

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

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

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

   • 2022 September 19, Alan Cowell, “From Coronation to Funeral: Bookends to the Life of a Queen, and a Generation”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     […] 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.

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), especially an electric or magnetic field, through a given surface.

   That high a neutron flux would be lethal in seconds.

5. (archaic) A disease which causes diarrhea, especially dysentery.
   • 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:

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

6. (archaic) Diarrhea or other fluid discharge from the body.
7. The state of being liquid through heat; fusion.

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

Borrowed from Latin flūxus. Doublet of fluix.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈfluks]

• Audio (Catalonia):

  (file)

flux m (plural fluxos)

1. flow

• fluir

• “flux” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
• “flux”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025
• “flux”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007

• IPA^(key): /flʏks/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʏks
• Homophone: fluks

Borrowed from Latin flūxus via French and English.

flux m (plural fluxen, diminutive fluxje n)

1. flux

See fluks.

flux (comparative fluxer, superlative meest flux or fluxt)

1. obsolete spelling of fluks

Borrowed from Latin fluxus.

• IPA^(key): /fly/

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

• (Eʋe people in Southern Togo) IPA^(key): /flyks/^[1]

flux m (plural flux)

1. flow
2. flood, flood tide

   Antonym: reflux

3. (figurative) flood (an abundance of something)

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

flux oblique singular, 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. Doublet of flujo and flojo.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfluɡs/ [ˈfluɣ̞s]
• Rhymes: -uɡs
• Syllabification: flux

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 [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024
• “flux”, in Diccionario de americanismos [Dictionary of Americanisms] (in Spanish), Association of Academies of the Spanish Language [Spanish: Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española], 2010