| 释义 |
fluent, a. and n.|ˈfluːənt|
Also 6–7 fluant.
[ad. L. fluent-em, pr. pple. of fluĕre to flow.]
A. adj.
1. That flows, flowing.
1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts 304 Whatsoeuer [water] is moueably fluent, is lesse subiect to poyson then that which standeth still. 1684tr. Bonet's Merc. Compit. viii. 272 Ligatures..seem to..impell the fluent bloud. 1719D'Urfey Pills (1872) III. 97 Into a fluent stream she leapt. 1854Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. XV. ii. 415 Streams which are permanent or fluent all the year. 1893Harper's Mag. LXXXVI. 815/2 The metal..came fluent from the crucible.
b. transf. and fig.; esp. of things compared to a stream or to the tide.
1642H. More Song of Soul ii. ii. iii. xxvi, Things that be fluent, As flitting time, by her be straight retent Unto one point. 1649G. Daniel Trinarch., Hen. V, ccxxviii, Yet Crouded Strength stifles the fluent Course Of many Glories. 1729Savage Wanderer iii. 6 The sloping Sun To Ocean's Verge, his fluent Course has run. 1842De Quincey Cicero Wks. VI. 227 The fluent intercourse with this island. 1854J. S. C. Abbott Napoleon (1855) II. xxvii. 502 Masses of cavalry, in fluent and refluent surges, trampled into the bloody mire the dying and the dead.
†c. Flowing readily as a consequence or inference. Obs.
1619W. Sclater Expos. 1 Thess. 244 In ancient Diuinitie the inference was fluent. Ibid. 567 See if from the fact of God, mentioned by the Apostle, it runnes not as fluent.
2. Having the property or capacity of flowing easily; ready to flow; fluid, liquid. Of a painter: Producing a fluid or liquid effect.
1601R. Johnson Kingd. & Commw. (1611) 5 The people of the South haue their bloud thinne and fluent. a1626Bacon Physiol. Rem. Wks. 1857 III. 814 When it is not malleable, but yet is not fluent, but stupified. 1686W. Harris tr. Lemery's Course Chym. ii. xiii. (ed. 3) 523 This fermentation subtilizes..the viscous parts..turns them into a thin fluent liquid. 1822Examiner 347/2 Backhuysen is often heavy in his shadows, but admirably fluent in the representation of water and air. 1844Mrs. Browning Drama of Exile Poems 1850 I. 77 The broad, fluent strata of pure air. 1877Dixon Diana, Lady Lyle I. iii. iii. 190 A fairy pool of water lies, fluent and opalesque, under an amber slab.
b. fig. and of non-material things: Fluid, liable to change; not stable, fixed, or rigid.
1648W. Mountague Devout Ess. vi. §2. 57 While the matter of worldly goods remaineth fluent and transitory. 1691Ray Creation 33 Motion being a fluent thing. 1814Wordsw. Excursion iv. 733 His quick hand bestowed On fluent operations a fixed shape. 1851Helps Comp. Solit. x. 188 The general body of opinion is very fluent. 1872M. Collins Two Plunges for Pearl I. 196 English society is curiously fluent.
3. transf.
a. Of hair: Growing in abundant quantity and falling in graceful curves; flowing.
1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts 566 Any one whose haires are too fluent and abundant. 1866G. Meredith Vittoria i, A fluent black moustache ran with the curve of the upper lip. 1872Tennyson Gareth & Lynette 454 Broad brows and fair, a fluent hair and fine.
b. Moving easily or gracefully; not stiff or rigid.
1869Blackmore Lorna D. x, I never had dreamed of such delicate motion, fluent and graceful.
†4. Flowing freely or abundantly. Also, abounding in. Obs.
1590Greene Orl. Fur. Wks. (Rtldg.) 98/1 Those fluent springs of your lamenting tears. 1611Speed Hist. Gt. Brit. vii. xii. §10. 222 Destitute of vertue and fluent in vice. 1639Daniel Ecclus. xliii. 53 A Cloud, swolne wth a fluent raine. c1682J. Collins Making of Salt in Eng. 2 At Namptwich they have one Pit within the Town, and two without, sufficient to serve the Fourth part of the Nation, the Bryne being so fluent.
b. Giving freely, generous. Obs. exc. dial.
1603Breton Packet Mad Lett. (Grosart.) 6/1 A sonne..bound..through the fluent bounty of a Father's loue. 1639J. Saltmarsh Policy 237 If you bee fluent in one kinde, bee sparing in another. 1887S. Chesh. Gloss., Fluent, liberal..as ‘fluent i' givin’.
5. Of speech, style, etc.: Flowing easily and readily from the tongue or pen.
1625Bacon Ess., Youth & Age (Arb.) 263 Such as is a fluent and Luxuriant Speech. 1660Wood Life (Oxf. Hist. Soc.) I. 360 Their fluent praying and preaching. 1670–1Narborough Jrnl. in Acc. Sev. Late Voy. i. (1711) 70 Their Language is much in the Throat, and not very fluent, but uttered with good deliberation. 1728Pope Dunc. iii. 197 How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue! 1828D'Israeli Chas. I, I. ii. 21 The pain which conversation occasions him whose speech is not fluent. 1866Geo. Eliot F. Holt (1868) 63 A soft voice with a clear fluent utterance.
b. Of a speaker, etc.: Ready in the use of words, able to express oneself readily and easily in speech or writing.
1589Warner Alb. Eng. v. xxvii. 119 Rhetoricall I am not with a fluant tongue to ster. 1610Heywood Gold. Age i. i. Wks. (1874) III. 5 Fluent Mercury Speakes from my tongue. 1737Pope Hor. Epist. ii. i. 279 Fluent Shakespear scarce effac'd a line. 1784Cowper Task iv. 19 His fluent quill. 1832H. Martineau Ireland i. 6 Fluent story-tellers. 1882Farrar in Contemp. Rev. 807 As a speaker..Dean Stanley was by no means fluent.
6. Math. In the doctrine of fluxions: Continuously increasing or decreasing by an infinitesimal quantity.
1734Berkeley Analyst §45 Wks. 1871 III. 287 Each foregoing is a fluent quantity having the following one for its fluxion. 1807Hutton Course Math. II. 276 Suppose the right line mn to move..continually parallel to itself..so as to generate the fluent or flowing rectangle abqp.
transf.1844Gladstone Glean. (1874) V. ii. 83 The Church..might be eliminated like a constant quantity from among those fluent materials with which history is conversant.
B. n.
†1. A stream, a current of water. Obs.[In the first two quots. strictly a distinct word ad. L. fluent-um.] 1598Yong Diana 308 The fertill fields, which the great riuer Duerus with his cristalline fluents doth water. 1616Chapman Homer's Hymn to Venus 378 At the fluents of the Ocean Nere Earths extreame bounds. 1705J. Philips Blenheim 239 Their hands, that sed'lous strive To cut the outrageous fluent.
2. Math. The variable quantity in fluxions which is continually increasing or decreasing.
1706W. Jones Syn. Palmar. Matheseos 226 Hence the Celerity of the Motion is..called Fluxion, and the Quantity generated Fluent. 1819G. Peacock View Fluxional Calculus 23 Where the fluent or integral is expressed by an algebraic function. 1878W. K. Clifford Dynamic ii. 62.
3. nonce-use. Something fluent or liable to change.
1836Coleridge Lit. Rem. II. 309 The guardian, as a fluent, is less than the permanent which he is to guard. He is the temporary and mutable mean. |