current

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

• adjective Belonging to the present time.
• adjective Being in progress now.
• adjective Passing from one to another; circulating.
• adjective Prevalent, especially at the present time: synonym: prevailing.
• adjective Running; flowing.
• noun A steady, smooth onward flow or movement: synonym: flow.
• noun The part of a body of liquid or gas that has a continuous onward movement.
• noun A general tendency, movement, or course. synonym: tendency.
• noun A flow of electric charge.
• noun The amount of electric charge flowing past a specified circuit point per unit time.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To make current or common; establish in common estimation; render acceptable.
• noun An obsolete spelling of currant.
• Running; moving; flowing; passing.
• Hence Passing from one to another; especially, widely circulated; publicly known, believed, or reported; common; general; prevalent; as, the current ideas of the day.
• Passing from hand to hand; circulating: as, current coin.
• Established by common estimation or consent; generally received: as, the current value of coin.
• Entitled to credit or recognition; fitted for general acceptance or circulation; authentic; genuine.
• Now passing; present in its course: as, the current month or year.
• noun A flowing; a flow; a stream; a passing by a continuous flux: used of fluids, as water, air, etc., or of supposed fluids, as electricity.
• noun Specifically, a portion of a large body of water or of air moving in a certain direction: as, ocean-currents.
• noun Course in general; progressive movement or passage; connected series: as, the current of time.
• noun General or main course; general tendency: as, the current of opinion.
• noun The amount of depression given to a roof to cause the water which falls upon it to flow in a given direction.

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

• adjective Archaic Running or moving rapidly.
• adjective Now passing, as time.
• adjective Passing from person to person, or from hand to hand; circulating through the community; generally received; common.
• adjective Commonly estimated or acknowledged.
• adjective Fitted for general acceptance or circulation; authentic; passable.
• adjective See under Account.
• adjective lawful money.
• noun A flowing or passing; onward motion. Hence: A body of fluid moving continuously in a certain direction; a stream; esp., the swiftest part of it; ; that which resembles a stream in motion.
• noun General course; ordinary procedure; progressive and connected movement
• noun an instrument for measuring the velocity, force, etc., of currents.
• noun a mill driven by a current wheel.
• noun a wheel dipping into the water and driven by the current of a stream or by the ebb and flow of the tide.

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

• noun The part of a fluid that moves continuously in a certain direction.
• noun electricity The time rate of flow of electric charge.
• noun A tendency or a course of events.
• adjective Existing or occurring at the moment.
• adjective Generally accepted, used, practiced, or prevalent at the moment.

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

• noun a flow of electricity through a conductor
• noun a steady flow of a fluid (usually from natural causes)
• adjective occurring in or belonging to the present time
• noun dominant course (suggestive of running water) of successive events or ideas