Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A fishing net.
  • noun A pipe, tube, or channel for conveying hot air, gas, steam, or smoke, as from a furnace or fireplace to a chimney.
  • noun An organ pipe sounded by means of a current of air striking a lip in the side of the pipe and causing the air within to vibrate.
  • noun The lipped opening in such a pipe.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A duct for the conveyance of air, smoke, heat, or gases.
  • noun A pipe or tube for conveying heat to water in certain kinds of steam-boilers.
  • noun A passage in a wall for the purpose of conducting heated air from one part of a building to another.
  • noun [See etym.] The winding hollow of a sea-shell.
  • noun In organ-building, a flute-pipe as distinguished from a mouth-pipe or reed-pipe.
  • noun The coping of a gable or end-wall of a house, etc.
  • To expand or splay, as the jambs of a window.
  • noun Down or nap; waste downy matter, abounding in spinneries, lint-factories, etc.; downy refuse; fine hair, feathers, flocks of cotton, etc., that cling to clothes.
  • Shallow.
  • noun In whaling, the fluke or barb of a harpoon.
  • noun A money of account of Morocco, of the value of one twenty-fifth of an English penny, or one thirteenth of a cent.
  • noun Influenza.
  • noun A fishing-net, stationary or used as a drag-net.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Light down, such as rises from cotton, fur, etc.; very fine lint or hair.
  • noun An inclosed passage way for establishing and directing a current of air, gases, etc.; an air passage.
  • noun A compartment or division of a chimney for conveying flame and smoke to the outer air.
  • noun A passage way for conducting a current of fresh, foul, or heated air from one place to another.
  • noun (Steam Boiler) A pipe or passage for conveying flame and hot gases through surrounding water in a boiler; -- distinguished from a tube which holds water and is surrounded by fire. Small flues are called fire tubes or simply tubes.
  • noun In an organ flue pipe, the opening between the lower lip and the languet.
  • noun See under Boiler.
  • noun the separating low wall between the flues and the laboratory of a reverberatory furnace.
  • noun (Steam Boiler) a plate to which the ends of the flues are fastened; -- called also flue sheet, tube sheet, and tube plate.
  • noun (Steam Boiler) the aggregate surface of flues exposed to flame or the hot gases.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A pipe or duct that carries gaseous combustion products away from the point of combustion (such as a furnace).
  • noun An enclosed passageway in which to direct air or other gaseous current along.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun flat bladelike projection on the arm of an anchor
  • noun organ pipe whose tone is produced by air passing across the sharp edge of a fissure or lip
  • noun a conduit to carry off smoke

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Middle Dutch vlūwe; see pleu- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

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Examples

  • The arrows show its descent through these flues, from which it obliquely strikes and passes over the flue-plate, then under it, and then out through the centre back-flue, which is open at the bottom, up into the smoke-pipe.

    American Woman's Home Harriet Beecher Stowe 1853

  • These are three in number -- the back centre-flue, which is closed to the heat and smoke coming over the oven from the fire-box by a damper -- and the two back corner-flues.

    American Woman's Home Harriet Beecher Stowe 1853

  • The plant's unit-three scrubber - also known as a flue gas desulfurization unit - will start operating next week.

    unknown title 2009

  • Not that I think the flue will be a serious matter.

    unknown title 2009

  • Part of that push is to expand use of synthetic gypsum - a whitish, calcium-rich material known as flue gas desulfurization gypsum, or FGD gypsum.

    Gaea Times (by Simple Thoughts) Breaking News and incisive views 24/7 2009

  • The most common method of drying out tobacco leaves, called flue curing, requires an external heat source.

    Slate Magazine 2009

  • Part of that push is to expand use of synthetic gypsum - a whitish, calcium-rich material known as flue gas desulfurization gypsum, or FGD gypsum.

    WCAX - Local News 2009

  • 3Something perhaps to do with the flue, I suggested, since the flue is the only part of the fireplace I can name for you.

    Virginity Sydney Kilgore 2010

  • According to the results of a one-time questionnaire-based statistical survey published by the University of Illinois, with 3146 individuals completing the survey, 97% of the actively publishing climate scientists (as opposed to the scientists who are not publishing actively) agree that human activity, such as flue gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, is a significant contributing factor to global climate change [1].

    About: Blinded by Science 2010

  • Investments in 2008 had been inflated by spending on extraordinary items, such as flue-gas desulfurization scrubbers at Scottish Power's Longannet coal-fired power plant, Mr. Galán said.

    Iberdrola Cuts Spending Plans Bernd Radowitz 2009

Comments

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  • WeirdNet is expanding my nautical vocabulary.

    September 11, 2008

  • "flue the coop"...to put a chimney in a small shed

    December 8, 2008