Forms: 2–6 flum, 3 Orm. flumm, (3 flun), 3–4 flym, 3–5 flumme, 3–6 flom(e, 4–5 flomme, 5 floum, 8–9 floom, 4– flume. See also FLEAM. [a. OF. flum, flun = Pr. flum, It. fiume:—L. flūmen river, f. fluĕre to flow.]

1

  † 1.  A stream, a river; also, water. Obs.

2

c. 1175.  Lamb. Hom., 141. Sunnendei wes ure drihten ifulchted ine flum iordan.

3

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 1035 (Cott.).

        Þis flummes four þat þar biginnes,
thoru out all oþer contres rinnes.

4

a. 1300.  Magdalena, 427, in Horstmann, Alteng. Leg., 158. From þannes to þe flym Jordan.

5

c. 1330.  R. Brunne, Chron. (1810), 186. At þat ilk flom Richard gaf bataile.

6

c. 1450.  Mirour Saluacioun, 1406.

                        There bene baptismes thre
Off fflvmme, of flavme, of blode.

7

1535.  Stewart, Cron. Scot., II. 450.

                    All into that flume
Tha drownit ilkone becaus tha culd nocht swym.

8

1652.  Gaule, Πῦς-μαντία, the Mag-astro-mancer, 247. A deep flume, which was called the water of Juno.

9

  2.  A mill-tail. Cf. FLEAM sb.2 2.

10

1855.  in Clarke, Dict.

11

  3.  U.S., etc. An artificial channel for a stream of water to be applied to some industrial use.

12

1784.  J. Belknap, Tour to White Mts. (1876), 16–7. Two streams come down the eastern side of this defile, forming beautiful cascades. One of them is so narrow as exactly to resemble a flume, and goes by that name.

13

1798.  J. Root, Amer. Law Rep., I. 359. Laid the bottom of the floom to the grist-mill four feet lower than the saw mill.

14

1862.  B. Taylor, Home & Abroad, Ser. II. ii. § 6. 126. Wooden flumes, raised on tall tressels, brought water from some reservoir above to the diggings, where it fell into the sluices in which the earth is washed.

15

1882.  W. H. Bishop, Southern California, in Harper’s Mag., LXV. Nov., 865/2. At Madera is seen the end of a curious V-shaped wooden aqueduct, or flume, which brings down lumber from the mountains fifty miles or more away, and terminates in a planing-mill.

16

  b.  A deep narrow channel or ravine with a stream running through it.

17

1792.  J. Belknap, Hist. New-Hampshire, III. 52–3. Two streams … one of which descends in a trench two feet wide, and is called the flume, from the near resemblance which it bears to an artificial flume.

18

1841.  C. T. Jackson, Geol. New Hampsh., 97. During the freshets of the spring season and in early summer, it is not practicable to walk in the bed of the flume, but in the driest season of the year there is but little water in it, and the bottom of the ravine affords a good foot-path.

19

1889.  J. D. Whitney, United States, 222. A purely American name for something which is not of uncommon occurrence in mountain regions is the word ‘flume,’ which as applied in the United States, and chiefly in the White Mountains, means a narrow passage or defile between nearly perpendicular rocks, through which runs a stream, and usually with a succession of cascades.

20

  c.  U.S. slang. To go or be up the flume: to ‘come to grief,’ ‘be done for’; to die.

21

1882.  Mark Twain [Clemens], Stolen White Eleph., etc., 97. Well, then, that idea’s up the flume.

22

1888.  W. H. Pollock & B. Matthews, Mated by Magic, in Longm. Mag., XIII. Nov., 48. It’s no good wishing—he’s gone up the flume!

23

  4.  Comb., as flume-car (see quot.).

24

1884.  Knight, Dict. Mech., 350/1. Flume Car. A car to travel in a flume; wheels rest on the sides of the flume, and the water runs a paddle wheel.

25