Word.ws English Dictionary

flume

UK/fluːm/

flume noun: a ravine or gorge, usually one with water running through.

flume: a ravine or gorge, usually one with water running through
Image: TS Eriksson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

flume (plural flumes)

  1. A ravine or gorge, usually one with water running through.
    • Near the upper end of the portage the river falls 100 feet in as many rods, the water going at lightning speed through a natural flume in the rock. So rapid is the descent that the water in the flume is but 3 feet deep. We named this the "Devil's Slide."1898, Recreation, page 31
  2. An open channel or trough used to direct or divert liquids, especially to carry materials (logs, mined material, etc) or people (as a water slide), especially (but not always) one where the walls are raised above the surrounding terrain rather than recessed like a ditch.
    • [...] the flumes are generally not dark rides and they run much faster. Two notable exceptions are the Timber Mountain[…]2001, Dale Samuelson, Wendy Yegoiants, The American Amusement Park, Motorbooks International, →ISBN, page 90
    • […] aqueducts, wooden half-barrels laid on their sides and elevated on rusty trestles, to rush the icy spring water down the mountainside to the fields. This system of irrigation through flumes was simple, but effective. There were miles of flumes and, […] the children of the island used the flumes...2012 July 4, Susanna Moore, The Whiteness of Bones, Vintage, →ISBN, page 4

Verb

flume (third-person singular simple present flumes, present participle fluming, simple past and past participle flumed)

  1. (transitive) To transport (logs of wood) by floating them along a water-filled channel or trough.

flume meaning in Tamil and Malayalam

flume in Tamil

செயற்கை நீர்க்கால், நீர்க்கால்வாய், புனல்வழி, குறுகிய நீர்ப்பாதை, குறுகிய போக்குவழி

flume in Malayalam

ഓവ്, ചാല്, വെള്ളത്തിൽ തെന്നിനടക്കാനുള്ള ഉപകരണം, മലയിടുക്ക്, കൊക്ക

Forms of flume

Noun
pluralflumes
Verb
third-person singular presentflumes
present participlefluming
past participleflumed
pastflumed

Plural of flume: flumes

Origin of flume

From Middle English flum, from Old French flum, flun, from Latin flumen, from fluere (“to flow”).

Words formed from flume

Words that rhyme with flume

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about flume

What does flume mean?
Flume means a ravine or gorge, usually one with water running through.
What is flume in Tamil?
Flume in Tamil is செயற்கை நீர்க்கால், நீர்க்கால்வாய், புனல்வழி. See Flume meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is flume?
Flume can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce flume?
Flume is pronounced /fluːm/ (UK).
What is the plural of flume?
The plural of flume is flumes.

Words near flume in the dictionary

  1. flumatinib
  2. flumazenil
  3. flumazepil
  4. flumdiddle
  5. flumdiddles
  6. flume
  7. flumed
  8. flumedroxone
  9. flumen
  10. flumenthrin
  11. flumequine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: flume (page history and authors); flume (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); flume (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-flume.ogg.

Cite this entry: “flume.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/flume. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.