fluid

• WordNet 3.6
  • adj fluid subject to change; variable "a fluid situation fraught with uncertainty","everything was unstable following the coup"
  • adj fluid affording change (especially in social status) "Britain is not a truly fluid society","upwardly mobile"
  • adj fluid in cash or easily convertible to cash "liquid (or fluid) assets"
  • adj fluid smooth and unconstrained in movement "a long, smooth stride","the fluid motion of a cat","the liquid grace of a ballerina"
  • adj fluid characteristic of a fluid; capable of flowing and easily changing shape
  • n fluid continuous amorphous matter that tends to flow and to conform to the outline of its container: a liquid or a gas
  • n fluid a substance that is fluid at room temperature and pressure
  • ***

• Interesting fact: Boiled grape juice was the fluid used as a lubricant for the first contact lenses. Eugene Flick, who invented contact lenses in 1887, chose boiled grape juice over sugar water to lubricate the thick glass lenses that covered the entire eye.
• • n Fluid A fluid substance; a body whose particles move easily among themselves.☞ Fluid is a generic term, including liquids and gases as species. Water, air, and steam are fluids. By analogy, the term was sometimes applied to electricity and magnetism, as in phrases electric fluid, magnetic fluid, though not strictly appropriate; such usage has disappeared.
  • a Fluid flū"ĭd Having particles which easily move and change their relative position without a separation of the mass, and which easily yield to pressure; capable of flowing; liquid or gaseous.
  • ***

• Interesting fact: During warm weather, hippos secrete a reddish, oily fluid, called pink sweat, which acts as a skin conditioner to keep it moist.
• • fluid Capable of flowing; liquid or gaseous; consisting of a substance incapable of resisting forces (tangential stresses) tending to change its shape.
  • fluid Not fixed or rigid; flowing; shifting; fluent.
  • n fluid A substance which flows or is capable of flowing; a substance which is incapable of resisting forces (tangential stresses) tending to change its shape without altering its size. A fluid has absolutely no tendency to spring back to its original shape when distorted, except in virtue of a surface tension. A perfect fluid is a fluid in which a bending stress produces an instantaneous strain—that is to say, there is no delay in taking a form of equilibrium, except what is due to the masses of the particles: opposed to a viscous fluid, in which the yielding is not instantaneous, and to a plastic solid, which yields instantaneously to a sufficient, but not to a very small, stress. Fluids are divided into liquids and gases or vapors. Gases or elastic fluids tend to expand indefinitely while preserving their homogeneity; liquids or inelastic fluids tend to expand indefinitely, but only by evaporation—that is, by separating into two parts with a bounding surface between them. (See liquid, gas, and ether.) In the early history of physical science the phenomena of heat, electricity, and magnetism were supposed to be due to the motions of peculiar imponderable fluids; hence the expressions north and south magnetic fluid, the electrical fluid, etc., which still linger (but not with good writers), though the explanation of the phenomena has changed with the advance of knowledge.
  • n fluid Some hypothetical supersensible substance conceived as analogous to known fluids. See fluidism.
  • n fluid See the adjectives.
  • n fluid See the adjectives.
  • ***

• Interesting fact: In a University of Arizona study, rails and armsrests in public buses were found to be contaminated by the highest concentration of bodily fluids.
• • adj Fluid flōō′id that flows, as water: liquid or gaseous
  • n Fluid a substance in which the particles can move about with greater or less freedom from one part of the body to another
  • ***

In literature:

In poetry:

In news:

In science: