Flux v.

[f. FLUX sb.]

  I.  In medicine.

  † 1.  trans. To treat medically by subjecting to a flux; esp. to salivate. Also, of food or drink; To produce a flux in (a person); to purge. Obs.

1666.  W. Boghurst, Loimographia (1894), 40. For many people being fluxed with quicksilver for the Pox have their jaws soe contracted that they can never open them again, but are forced to live upon sucking in liquid, spoonmeats, and such things.

1684.  trans. Bonet’s Merc. Compit., XVII. 592. The Bone must be taken out … the Ulcer cleansed and the Body fluxed.

1711.  Swift, Jrnl. to Stella, 15 Feb. She’ll be fluxed in two months, and they’ll be parted in a year.

1756.  Nugent, Gr. Tour, France, IV. 21. You must take care not to be too free with their small wines in Calais, for like the water in Paris, they will certainly flux you, if you drink too plentifully of them.

1768.  Foote, Devil 2 Sticks, III. Wks. 1799, II. 275. We are authorised to grant unto the said Doctor full power, permission, and licence, to pill … flux … and poultice, all persons, in all diseases.

1785.  Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Flux, to salivate.

  † b.  fig.; also to clear of. Obs.

1651.  R. Waring, To W. Cartwright, 38, in Cartwright’s Comedies, *6 b. To cure the Itch, or flux the Pen.

1660.  Charac. Italy, 12. Another trick he hath that helps him to hill up his fatal riches, and that is the Papal Necromancy, or singing and praying for the dead, which doth so flux the pocket.

1664.  Butler, Hud., II. I. 362.

a. 1688.  Villiers (Dk. Buckhm.), Poems (1775), 140.

  † c.  jocosely. (See quots.) Obs.

a. 1763.  Byrom, Black Bob Wig, xli.

1785.  Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v. To flux a wig, to put it up in curl, and bake it.

  † d.  intr. To submit to treatment by fluxing. Obs.

1693.  Shadwell, Volunteers, IV. i. Would not flux because times were unsettled.

1707.  J. Stevens, trans. Quevedo’s Com. Wks. (1709), 326. A young Wench fluxing for the Falling-sickness.

1755.  Lady M. W. Montagu, Lett. to C’tess Bute, 22 Sept. His natural spirits gave him rapture with his cook-maid, and cheerfulness when he was fluxing in a garret.

  fig.  1733.  Revolution Politicks, v. 3.

  2.  dial. and slang (obs.). (See quots.)

1785.  Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Flux, to cheat, cozen, or overreach.

1875.  Parish, Sussex Gloss., Flux. To snatch at anything; to blush.

  II.  In etymological sense.

  3.  intr. † a. Of a person: To bleed copiously. (obs.^–1) b. To issue in a flux, flow copiously.

1638.  A. Read, Chirurg., xxvi. 192–3. The wounded party doth flux to death most commonly before any Chirurgeon can come to stay the bleeding.

1823.  Lamb, Lett. to B. Barton, 21 Nov. (1888), II. 90. Once fix the seat of your disorder, and your fancies flux into it like so many bad humours.

1869.  Blackmore, Lorna D., i. The invading waters … fluxing along the wall from below the road-bridge.

  III.  In ancient Chemistry and Metallurgy.

  4.  trans. To make fluid, fuse, melt.

1477.  Norton, Ord. Alch., v., in Ashm. (1652), 79.

1666.  Boyle, Orig. Formes & Qual., 260. So likewise of Sea salt, if it be distill’d, as it is usual, with thrice its weight of burn’d Clay, or beaten Brick, twill prove inconvenient in reference to its Redintegration; and if it be distill’d alone, it is apt to be fluxt by the heat of the fire, and, whilst it remains in Fusion, will scarce yield any Spirit at all.

1762.  Gentl. Mag., March, 102/2. Coals from whence the tar has been drawn cause an immediate intense equal heat, which fluxes the oar with quickness to the highest degree of fluidity, by which means the metals sooner subside, and at the same time are guarded from exhaling by their own dross.

1883.  Nasmyth, Autobiog., vi. 104. The walls, under the intense heat, were fluxed and melted into a sort of glass.

  fig.  1754.  Shebbeare, Matrimony (1766), I. 79. The Alloy, which was fluxed out of him, left so little of the Original remaining, that [etc.].

1860.  Emerson, Cond. Life, i. (1861), 29. Every solid in the universe is ready to become fluid on the approach of the mind, and the power to flux it is the measure of the mind.

  5.  To treat with a flux (see FLUX sb. 11); to heat in combination with a flux.

1781.  Dict. Chem., in J. T. Dillon, Trav. Spain, 233, note. If well calcined cobalt be treated with inflammable matter, and fluxed like other metallic calxes, it will be reduced to a semi-metal, called by Mr. Brandt, of the Swedish academy, who first produced it, regulus of cobalt.

c. 1790.  Imison, Elements of Science and Art, II. 151. To melt the copper as fluid as possible, and flux it with the black flux.

1802.  Ann. Reg., 780/1. The highest finished ware in this manufactory is frequently returned to the enamel kiln, where the colours are fluxed six or seven times: the best only is here finished for sale.

  absol.  1872.  W. S. Symonds, Rec. Rocks, ix. 306. These lower limestone beds are used for fluxing.

  6.  intr. To become fluid; to melt.

1669.  W. Simpson, Hydrol. Chym., 14. Firing [it] strongly in a crusible until it flux.

1789.  G. White, Selborne, iv. (1853), 21. The workmen use sand loam instead of mortar; the sand of which fluxes, and runs by the intense heat, and so cases over the whole face of the kiln with a strong vitrified coat-like glass.

  Hence Fluxing ppl. a.

1702.  De Foe, Reform. Manners, I. 190.

1711.  E. Ward, Quix., I. 71.