Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A flowing back; reflux; ebb.
  • noun A backward movement.

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

  • noun The quality of being refluent; a flowing back.

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

  • noun The quality of being refluent; a flowing back.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The influx of the flood tossed him like a log forward into the cabin, where he would have drowned but for the refluence of the sinking motion.

    Ben-Hur, a tale of the Christ 1901

  • On lighthouses heavily barred doors have been burst outward by the explosive force of the air within, as it was released from pressure when a partial vacuum was formed by the refluence of the wave.

    The Elements of Geology William Harmon Norton 1900

  • “The Inn Album,” a dramatic poem of extraordinary power, has so much more markedly the defects of his qualities that I take it to be, at the utmost, the poise of the first gradual refluence.

    Life of Robert Browning Sharp, William, 1855-1905 1897

  • Supreme wisdom (_Prajná_) of nature, so is it perfected by a refluence to its source, but without loss of individuality; whence Prajna is feigned in the exoteric system to be both the mother and the wife of all the Buddhas, '_janani sarva Buddkánám_,' and '_Jina-sundary_;' for the efflux is typified by a birth, and the reflux by a marriage.

    The Religions of Japan From the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji William Elliot Griffis 1885

  • "The Inn Album," a dramatic poem of extraordinary power, has so much more markedly the defects of his qualities that I take it to be, at the utmost, the poise of the first gradual refluence.

    Life of Robert Browning William Sharp 1880

  • Since the war a sort of refluence of the old anti-slavery politics carried from his moorings in

    Short Stories and Essays (from Literature and Life) William Dean Howells 1878

  • Since the war a sort of refluence of the old anti-slavery politics carried from his moorings in

    Literature and Life (Complete) William Dean Howells 1878

  • The masterful waves, as you may know, have for many ages flowed from the West; but now, the old Roman impetus having at last spent itself, a refluence is to set in, and the East in its turn pour a dominating flood upon the West.

    The Prince of India — Volume 01 Lewis Wallace 1866

  • Its disappearance from the stage of time is not an extinction of essence -- a reduction to nonentity; it is only a refluence into its original source.

    Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity Robert Patterson 1857

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