refluent, a.
(ˈrɛfluːənt)
[ad. L. refluent-em, pres. pple. of refluĕre to flow back, f. re- re- 2 a + fluĕre to flow.]
1. Flowing back, reflowing: a. of the sea, waves, rivers, etc.
| 1712 Blackmore Creation iii. 139 Do not the Rivers..to the Hills convey the Refluent Wave..? 1725 Pope Odyss. v. 549 Then backward sweep The refluent tides, and plunge him in the deep. 1791 Cowper Iliad xii. 30 All those [rivers] with refluent course Apollo drove Nine days against the rampart. 1812 Brackenridge Views Louisiana (1814) 37 In lower Louisiana, there are a great number of lakes from the refluent waters of the Mississippi. 1873 T. W. Higginson Oldport Days ii. 36 All night the phosphorescent water..washes with long, refluent waves along their sides. |
| transf. 1842 Alison Hist. Europe lxxxiv. §1 The once triumphant Peninsular hosts, refluent through the passes of the Pyrenees. 1856 R. A. Vaughan Mystics (1860) II. 78 To give him a hold against any refluent doubt that might threaten to sweep him back. |
b. of blood, the spirits, life, etc.
| 1699 Garth Dispens. 91, I show'd of old, how vital Currents glide, And the Meanders of their refluent Tide. 1714 Spring in Steele Poet. Misc. 109 When to his Heart the refluent Spirits came. 1789 E. Darwin Bot. Gard. ii. (1791) 77 Slow-ebbing life with refluent crimson breaks O'er their wan lips. 1816 Southey Lay of Laureate lxix, I felt the refluent blood forsake my face. 1872 Geo. Eliot Middlem. xxxii, Too languid to sting, he had the more venom refluent in his blood. |
c. Phys. of blood or other fluids.
| 1704 Ray Creation ii. (ed. 4) 319 To discharge the refluent Blood into the next adjacent Trunk. 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) IV. 347 The ammoniacal salt of the refluent urine. 1898 Allbutt's Syst. Med. V. 924 The heading back will..fill the ventricle still more with refluent aortic blood. |
2. Characterized by refluence,
esp. tidal.
| 1741 Monro Anat. Nerves (ed. 3) 21 This..Reflux it was.., which gave Rise to another Division of the Nerves into arterious or effluent, and venous or refluent. 1798 Anti-Jacobin No. 28 Wherever man is found, or refluent oceans roll. 1864 Tennyson Boadicea 28 A phantom colony smoulder'd on the refluent estuary. |
† 3. Directed backwards.
Obs. rare—1.
| 1741 Shenstone Judgm. Hercules 424 If o'er their lives a refluent glance they cast, Their's is the present who can praise the past. |