[f. FLUTE v. + -ING1.] The action of the vb. FLUTE in various senses.
1. The action of playing on the flute or singing in flute-like tones; an instance of this.
1481. Caxton, Reynard (Arb.), 110. To me thou losest thy flateryng and swete floytyng.
1858. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., II. VI. vii. 108. Fritz’s love of music, especially of fluting, is already known to us.
1874. L. Morris, Poems, To a Lost Love, i.
| Cold snowdrops which the shrinking new-born year | |
| Sends like the dove from out the storm-tost ark; | |
| Sweet violets which may not tarry here | |
| Beyond the earliest flutings of the lark. |
1882. Gosse, in Grosart’s Spenser, III. p. xxxix. The delicious flutings of Herrick are too familiar, and have been too often discussed, to call for analysis here.
2. The action of making flutes in columns, or in frills, ruffles, etc.; ornamentation with flutes; the result of this action, fluted work. Also attrib. in names of appliances for fluting, as fluting-cylinder, -iron, -lathe, -machine, -plane, etc.
1728. R. Morris, Ess. Anc. Archit., 81. I must just explain to you the fourth Figure in the foregoing Plate concerning Fluting or Grooving.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xix. 99. A mountain-wall of hard granite, on which the flutings and groovings are magnificently preserved.
1864. Webster, Fluting-plane (Carp.), a plane with curved face, used in grooving flutes.
1878. Bell, Gegenbaur’s Comp. Anat., 104. They are formed of a firm substance allied to chitin, and are often provided with various sculpturings, flutings, spines, ridges, and so on.
1879. Sir G. G. Scott, Lect. Archit., I. 87. Singular ornamentation of the pedestal or basement of the doorways, by means of fluting, etc.
3. = FLUTE sb.1 4, 5. Also collect.
1611. Cotgr., Caneleure, a fluting, channelling, straking, furrowing.
1613–39. I. Jones, in Leoni, Palladio’s Archit. (1742), II. 50. The fluting in front are deep half Circles.
1723. Chambers, trans. Le Clerc’s Treat. Archit., I. 31. The Flutings of this [Doric] Column ought not to exceed twenty, which is the Number observ’d by Vignola.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Mushroom, A … Cap or Head, garnished sometimes underneath with several Flutings.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 308. The Doric shafts have their flutes in very flat segments, finished to an arris: sometimes flutings of the semi-ellipsis shape, with fillets, were adopted.
1851. G. F. Richardson, Geol. (1855), 445. It is supposed to have been the bark of the trees carbonised, since they now appear completely decorticated, and present various flutings.
1869. Boutell, Arms & Arm., v. 76. The corslet and cuirass of the Greeks sometimes show no other decoration than the bold flutings at their base, while at other times a rich foliage is introduced and expressed by effective outlines.
1872. C. King, Mountain. Sierra Nev., iii. 70. Every fluting of the great valley was in itself a considerable cañon, into which we descended, climbing down the scored rocks, and swinging from block to block, until we reached the level of the pines.
1880. Baring-Gould, Mehalah, II. vi. 105. She ran her fingers through the flutings of her frills, to make them stand out and form a halo round her face, like the corolla of white round the golden centre of the daisy.
