Forms: 4 curraunt, 6–7 currant, 6– current. [a. OF. corant, curant, sb. use of courant adj.: see prec., with which this is in its orthographical history identical.]
1. That which runs or flows, a stream; spec. a portion of a body of water, or of air, etc., moving in a definite direction.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. I. 186. Men þat knowen þe worchinge of þe elementis … and worchiþ woundir bi craft in mevynge of currauntis.
1595. Shaks., John, II. i. 441. Two such siluer currents when they ioyne Do glorifie the bankes that bound them in.
1665. Hooke, Microgr., 212. A small current of blood, which came directly from its snout, and past into its belly.
1727. Swift, Gulliver, III. iv. 205. A … mill turned by a current from a large river.
1863. A. C. Ramsay, Phys. Geog., i. (1878), 10. Great ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream.
2. The action or condition of flowing; flow, flux (of a river, etc.); usually in reference to its force or velocity.
1555. Eden, Decades, 353. Where the currant setteth alwayes to the eastwarde.
1683. Burnet, trans. More’s Utopia (1684), 65. There is no great Current in the Bay.
1769. De Foe’s Tour Gt. Brit., III. 57. [The River Trent] comes down from the Hills with a violent Current into the flat Country.
1832. W. Irving, Alhambra, I. 25. I came to a river with high banks and deep rapid current.
1863. Mary Howitt, trans. F. Bremer’s Greece, II. xiv. 90. The well-known phenomenon of the changing current in the Straits [of Euripus].
† b. The course of a river or other flowing body. Obs.
1696. Whiston, Th. Earth, II. (1722), 119. The rise and currents of Rivers are not always the same now as before the Flood.
1753. Hanway, Trav. (1762), I. III. xxvi. 111. The peasants diverted the current of the flame, and saved their villages.
1799. J. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 25. The Earn is a more rapid river than the Forth, has a longer current, [etc.].
3. The inclination or ‘fall’ given to a gutter, roof, etc., to let the water run off.
1582. in W. H. Turner, Select. Rec. Oxford, 423. No … persons shall make their pavements higher then an other, but that hit may have a reasonable currant.
1699. in Col. Rec. Pennsylv., I. 559. Neglect of Levelling the streets and ordering the Currents yrof.
1703. T. N., City & C. Purchaser, 161. Take care that the Gutter Boards, &c. lie … in such a Position that it may have a good Current.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 407. All sheet lead is laid with a current to keep it dry.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., s.v., Gutters usually have a current of 1/4 inch to the foot.
† 4. Circulation (of money), currency. Obs.
1586. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., I. 635. This privie councell … taketh order for the currant and finenes of money.
1651. N. Bacon, Disc. Govt. Eng., II. vii. (1739), 44. The regulating of the Mint, and the current of Money.
1691. trans. Emilianne’s Frauds Romish Monks, 91. They find a plentiful current of Devotional-Mony.
5. fig. The course of time or of events; the main course.
1586. J. Hooker, Girald. Irel., in Holinshed, II. 136/1. That place was not possessed of the like in manie currents of yeares.
1602. Marston, Ant. & Mel., V. Wks. 1856, I. 66. My joyes passion … choakes the current of my speach.
1721. Strype, Eccl. Mem., I. 19. More perhaps will be said of him in the current of these memorials.
1788. Priestley, Lect. Hist., III. xiii. 106. Without some such general comprehension, as we may call it, of the whole current of time.
1817. Chalmers, Astron. Disc., iii. (1852), 77. The whole current of my restless and ever-changing history.
1868. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. x. 519. One more tale will bring us back directly to the current of our story.
6. Course or progress in a defined direction; tendency, tenor, drift (of opinions, writings, etc.).
1595. Shaks., John, II. i. 335. Say, shall the currant of our right rome on.
1607. Hieron, Wks., I. 370. This is … plaine and obuious out of the very current of the words.
1692. Locke, Toleration, III. x. In your first Paper, as the whole Current of it would make one believe.
1782. Priestley, Corrupt. Chr., I. I. 76. The current of mens opinions having for some time set that way.
1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., I. xii. 152. [These] words … express the whole current of modern feeling.
† b. The tendency or drift of the common opinion, practice, etc., of a body of persons. Obs.
1613. J. Salkeld, Treat. Angels, 218. Against this opinion is the common current of all Doctors and Fathers.
1650. R. Hollingworth, Exerc. conc. Usurped Powers, 17. The current of the people or community I am of is to be followed.
1738. Swift, Pol. Conv., xxxii. Affecting Singularity, against the general Current and Fashion of all about them.
1863. Sat. Rev., XV. 583/1. The current of modern American authorities is in complete accordance with this view.
7. Electr. The name given to the apparent transmission or ‘flow’ of electric force through a conducting body: introduced in connection with the theory that electrical phenomena are due to a fluid (or fluids) which moves in actual ‘streams’; now the common term for the phenomenon, without reference to any theory.
An electric current is according to its nature called alternating or continuous, intermittent, pulsatory, or undulatory.
1747. Gentl. Mag., XVII. 141. The frequent exciting such currents of ethereal fire in bed-chambers.
1752. Franklin, Lett., Wks. 1887, II. 253. Perhaps the auroræ boreales are currents of this fluid in its own region, above our atmosphere.
1842. Grove, Corr. Phys. Forces, 48. From the manner in which the peculiar force called electricity is seemingly transmitted through certain bodies … the term current is commonly used to denote its apparent progress.
1871. Tyndall, Fragm. Sc. (ed. 6), I. x. 306. Faraday proved the existence and illustrated the laws of those induced currents.
1881. W. L. Carpenter, Energy in Nature, 153. Dynamo machines … that supply alternating currents, i. e. currents alternately in opposite directions.
Mod. Advt. The [Electric Lighting] Company are prepared to supply current within the district named.
b. transf. Applied to the transmission of nerve-force along a nerve.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., I. ii. § 18. A current of nervous stimulus … derived from the [spinal] cord to the muscles.
8. attrib. and Comb. a. In relation to currents of water, air, and the like, as current-drifted; current-bedding, the bedding of geological strata in a sloping direction caused by deposition in a current of water; current-fender, a structure to ward off the current from a bank, etc., which it threatens to undermine; current-gauge, current-meter, an apparatus made for measuring the flow of liquids through a channel; current-mill, a mill driven by a current-wheel; current-wheel, a wheel driven by a natural current of water. b. Of or pertaining to an electrical current; as current-breaker, -collector, -meter, -regulator, -weigher, etc.
1891. Jrnl. Derbyshire Archæol. Soc., XIII. 35. The directions of the dip of planes of *current-bedding.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xvii. 206. A *current-drifted cask.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., 661. The dynamometer *current-gage of Woltmann, 1790, is a light water-wheel operated by the current. Ibid., The *current-wheel is perhaps the first application of the force of water in motion to driving machinery.
1889. Pall Mall Gaz., 16 March, 3/3. This *current collector, which is connected with the motor placed between the wheels underneath the floor of the car, moves in the conduit beneath the rail.
1879. G. Prescott, Sp. Telephone, 16. When the latter acts, it does so in obedience to *current pulsations.
1881. Maxwell, Electr. & Magn., I. 380. A stratum of a conductor contained between two consecutive surfaces of flow … is called a *Current-Sheet. Ibid., II. 341. The suspended coil in Dr. Joule’s *current-weigher … is horizontal, and capable of vertical motion.
