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Webster 1913 Edition


Fluxion

Flux′ion

,
Noun.
[Cf. F.
fluxion
.]
The act of flowing.
Cotgrave.
2.
The matter that flows.
Wiseman.
3.
Fusion; the running of metals into a fluid state.
4.
(Med.)
An unnatural or excessive flow of blood or fluid toward any organ; a determination.
5.
A constantly varying indication.
Less to be counted than the
fluxions
of sun dials.
De Quincey.
6.
(Math.)
(a)
The infinitely small increase or decrease of a variable or flowing quantity in a certain infinitely small and constant period of time; the rate of variation of a fluent; an incerement; a differential.
(b)
pl.
A method of analysis developed by Newton, and based on the conception of all magnitudes as generated by motion, and involving in their changes the notion of velocity or rate of change. Its results are the same as those of the differential and integral calculus, from which it differs little except in notation and logical method.

Webster 1828 Edition


Fluxion

FLUX'ION

n. [L. fluxio, from fluo, to flow.]
1.
The act of flowing.
2.
The matter that flows.
3.
Fluxions, in mathematics, the analysis of infinitely small variable quantities, or a method of finding an infinitely small quantity, which being taken an infinite number of times, becomes equal to a quantity given.
In fluxions, magnitudes are supposed to be generated by motion; a line by the motion of a point, a surface by the motion of a line, and a solid by the motion of a surface. And some part of a figure is supposed to be generated by a uniform motion, in consequence of which the other parts may increase uniformly, or with an accelerated or retarded motion, or may decrease in any of these ways, and the computations are made by tracing the comparative velocities with which the parts flow.
A fluxion is an infinitely small quantity, an increment; the infinitely small increase of the fluent or flowing quantity.

Definition 2024


fluxion

fluxion

English

Noun

fluxion (plural fluxions)

  1. (obsolete, mathematics) The derivative of a function
  2. (rare or archaic) The action of flowing

Verb

fluxion (third-person singular simple present fluxions, present participle fluxioning, simple past and past participle fluxioned)

  1. (geology) To be distributed in a flowing pattern.
    • 1982, Charles James Hughes, Igneous petrology, ISBN 0444420118, page 142:
      ...pilotaxitic texture connotes abundant plagioclase microlites prominently fluxioned in an overall sub-parallel manner and locally around phenocrysts (but strictly in a holocrystalline non-glassy matrix).

Derived terms