fluff2 (fluf)

[Perhaps imitative, like puff, q. v.] 1. A puff. [Scotch.] I'm sure an ye warn a a fish or something war, ye could never a' keep it ae fluff o breath in the body o ye in aneath the lock. Saint Patrick, III. 31. ( Jamie son . ) 2. A slight explosion of gunpowder. - A fluff in the pant, an explosion of priming in the lock-pan of a flintlock gun, while the gun itself does not go off; figuratively, any ineffectual, short, spasmodic effort which dies in the attempt; a flash in the pan. fluff 2 (fluf), v. t. (See the noun.] To cause to puff. To fluff powdert, to burn gunpowder. fluff-gib (fluf'jib), n. A squib. [Scotch.] Nane o' this unlawfu' wark, wi fighting, and flashes, and soldiers. Scott, Rob Roy, xxx i. fluffine (fluf'i-nes), n. The state or quality of being fluffy; flocculence. Morality is not a matter of goodne , but of true relation to facts a relation which must be fluent, which cannot be rigid. 2. Ready in the use of words; using words Auf - ribs, disturbing the king's peace, and disarming his Mind, IX. 395. with facility; voluble: as, a fluent speaker or writer. Not but the tragic spirit was our own, And full in Shake spear, fair in Otway shone: But Otway fail'd to polish or refine, And fluent Shake spear scarce effaced a line. Pope, Imit, of Horace, II. 1. 279. Once on the theme of her own merits, Mademoiselle Charlotte Bronte, Shirley, vi. was fluent. 3. Proceeding from a faculty of ready copious speech; marked by copiousne of speech: as, fluent utterance; a fluent style. How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue! How sweet the periods, neither said nor sung! Pope , Dunciad, iii. 201. II. n. 11. A stream; a current of water. Confiding in their hands, that sed'lous strive To cut the outrageous fluent. J. Philips, Blenheim. 2. In the doctrine of fluxions, the variable or flowing quantity in fluxions which is continually increasing or decreasing; an integral. See Auxion. - Contemporary fluents, functions of the same independent variable. - Correction of a fluent. See correction. - Fluent by continuation, an expre ion for the fluent of a fluxion deduced from the expre ion for the fluent of another fluxion. - Fluent by series, the expre ion of the fluent of a fluxion in the form of an infinite series. Fluent of a fluxion, the integral of a function as conceived in the doctrine of fluxions.