Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A narrow gorge, usually with a stream flowing through it.
- noun An open artificial channel or chute carrying a stream of water, as for furnishing power or conveying logs.
- noun A very small swimming pool designed with a propeller or pump to generate a current, allowing a swimmer to swim in place.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In gold-mining, to carry off in a flume, as the water of a stream, in order to lay bare the auriferous sand and gravel forming the bed.
- In lumbering, to transport, as logs or timbers, by a flume.
- To conduct a channel or canal, by a flume, along an artificial temporary construction in situations where an earth or masonry channel cannot readily be secured by excavation and embankment.
- To build a flume or artificial channel and its supporting construction.
- noun A stream; a river.
- noun In physical geography, in the United States, especially in New England, a narrow defile with nearly vertical walls, the bottom of which is usually occupied by a mountain torrent.
- noun An artificial channel for a stream of water to be applied to some industrial use.
- noun An inclined trough in which water runs, used in transporting logs or timbers.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A stream; especially, a passage channel, or conduit for the water that drives a mill wheel; or an artifical channel of water for hydraulic or placer mining; also, a chute for conveying logs or lumber down a declivity.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
ravine orgorge , usually one withwater running through. - noun An open
channel ortrough used to direct or divertliquids .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a narrow gorge with a stream running through it
- noun watercourse that consists of an open artificial chute filled with water for power or for carrying logs
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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And that a flume is an open artificial water channel, that leads water from a diversion dam or weir completely aside a natural flow, often an elevated box structure (typically wood) that follows the natural contours of the land?
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He came to watch us train in what we call the flume but didn't get too involved, he just stood there taking it all in.
Evening Standard - Home Liam Tancock 2012
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In this snow many of the shanties of the abandoned mining camp were obliterated (a sailor might have said they had gone down), and at irregular intervals it had overtopped the tall trestles which had once supported a river called a flume; for, of course, 'flume' is flumen.
Can Such Things Be 1893
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In this snow many of the shanties of the abandoned mining camp were obliterated, (a sailor might have said they had gone down) and at irregular intervals it had overtopped the tall trestles which had once supported a river called a flume; for, of course, "flume" is flumen.
Can Such Things Be? Ambrose Bierce 1878
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Oh and the mom in the back having way more fun than her two kids. (btw, did you know that a log flume is a flume specifically constructed to transport lumber and logs down mountainous terrain to a sawmill by using flowing water?
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Somewhere between the Lifelight pyramid and the flume was a red arch.
Raven Rise D. J. MacHale 2008
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Somewhere between the Lifelight pyramid and the flume was a red arch.
Raven Rise D. J. MacHale 2008
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In this snow many of the shanties of the aban - doned mining camp were obliterated (a sailor might have said they had gone down), and at irregular in - tervals it had overtopped the tall trestles which had once supported a river called a flume; for, of course,
Can Such Things Be Bierce, Ambrose, 1842-1914? 1909
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The flume was a square trough, open at the top and several miles in length.
In the Footprints of the Padres Charles Warren Stoddard 1876
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Mayor Wallace Cartwright sent the letter to Shelbyville Power, Water and Sewer manager David Crowell on March 31, which requested that it was the city's belief that sharing the repair costs for the flume should be the responsibility of the utility "or its agents and contractors."
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