flue

• IPA^(key): /fluː/
• (obsolete) IPA^(key): /fljuː/[1]
• Rhymes: -uː
• Homophones: flew, flu

From Middle English flue, flewe (“mouthpiece of a hunting horn”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps a back-formation from Middle English *flews (mistaken as a plural), from Old English flēwsa (“a flow, flowing, flux”). Alternatively, perhaps an alteration of Middle English floute, fleute, flote (“a pipe”), see English flute. Compare also Middle Dutch vloegh (“groove, channel, flute of a fluted column”).

flue (plural flues)

1. A pipe or duct that carries gaseous combustion products away from the point of combustion (such as a furnace).
   • 1815, Robertson Buchanan, A Treatise on the Economy of Fuel, and Management of Heat, Especially as it Relates to Heating and Drying by Means of Steam, Appendix, p. 307.:

     It has frequently been a subject of inquiry, whether the ancients were acquainted with chimneys, or open fire-places. In the houses discovered at Herculaneum and Pompeii, there are no chimneys; they all appear to have been warmed by furnaces and flues.

   • 1944 November and December, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 341:

     Besides the usual run of machines, planers, millers, automatics, centre lathes, cranes, etc., there were several power stations, the rolling mills for strip material and for 60 ft. rails, and all the steel furnaces with their complicated systems of flues. If variety is the spice of life, then there was plenty here.

2. An enclosed passageway in which to direct air or other gaseous current along.
3. (obsolete, countable and uncountable) A woolly or downy substance; down, nap; a piece of this.
4. In an organ flue pipe, the opening between the lower lip and the languet.

flue (comparative more flue, superlative most flue)

1. (UK, dialect) Alternative form of flew (“shallow, flat”)

• fuel, fule

From Old Danish flughæ, from Old Norse fluga.

• IPA^(key): /fluːə/, [ˈfluːə], [ˈfluːu]

flue c (singular definite fluen, plural indefinite fluer)

1. fly

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flue

1. fluently

flue

1. second-person singular present active imperative of fluō

flue

1. Alternative form of flowen

From Danish flue, from Old Norse fluga f, from Proto-Germanic *flugǭ. Compare Norwegian Nynorsk fluge, flugu (dialectal flue).

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flue f or m (definite singular flua or fluen, indefinite plural fluer, definite plural fluene)

1. (insect) a fly

   flue på veggen ― fly on the wall

• fluefiske

• fluge (Nynorsk)

• “flue” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

• IPA^(key): /²flʉː.ə/

flue (present tense fluar, past tense flua, past participle flua, passive infinitive fluast, present participle fluande, imperative flue/flu)

1. Alternative form of flu

• fule