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The act of flexing or bending; a turning or curving; flexion; hence, obsequious bowing or bending. Will it give place to flexure and low bending Shak.

To waver unsteadily, like a flame in a current of air, or when about to expire; as, the flickering light. The shadows flicker to fro. Tennyson.

A horizontal vane revolving over the surface of wort in a cooler, to produce a circular current in the liquor. Knight.

The side of a hog salted and cured; a side of bacon. Swift.

A mass of timber or boards fastened together, and conveyed down a stream by the current; a raft.

Furnished with tufts of curly hairs, as some insects.

y diffused; an overflowing; a superabundance; as, a flood of bank notes; a flood of paper currency.

pen or graver; a merely decorative figure. The neat characters and flourishes of a Bible curiously printed. Boyle.

A stream of water or other fluid; a current; as, a flow of water; a flow of blood.

An inclosed passage way for establishing and directing a current of air, gases, etc.; an air passage; esp.:

A current of water; a stream. [Obs.]

A pipe, esp. an organ pipe, whose tone is produced by the impinging of a current of air upon an edge, or lip, causing a wave motion in the air within; a mouth pipe; -- distinguished from reed pipe. Flue pipes are either open or closed (stopped at the distant end). The flute and flageolet are open pipes; a bottle acts a…

A channel of curved section; -- usually applied to one of a vertical series of such channels used to decorate columns and pilasters in classical architecture. See Illust. under Base, n.

straight line called the directrix that the ratio of the distace between any point of the curve and the focus to the distance of the same point from the directrix is constant.

Furnished with leaves; leafy; as, a foliate stalk. Foliate curve. (Geom.) Same as Folium.

A curve of the third order, consisting of two infinite branches, which have a common asymptote. The curve has a double point, and a leaf-shaped loop; whence the name. Its equation is x3 + y3 = axy.

. Tales, legends, or superstitions long current among the people. Trench.

A stream; a current. With water of the ford Or of the clouds. Spenser. Permit my ghost to pass the Stygford. Dryden.

inating in two or more prongs or tines, which are usually of metal, parallel and slightly curved; -- used from piercing, holding, taking up, or pitching anything.

part of the evil came from our father upon us, but the formality of it, the sting and the curse, is only by ourselves. Jer. Taylor. The formality of the vow lies in the promise made to God. Bp. Stillingfleet.