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Etymology and origin of the English word flue

Pronunciation

flue1 smoke channel

Confidence
Uncertain
First attested
1582 Oxford records

Etymology

The word for the smoke channel is of uncertain origin,[2][3][4] and several dictionaries simply call it unknown.[5][6][7][8][9] Barnhart, with the OED, assumes a general first meaning "passage, channel" and connects it with uses for a cavity of a shell (1562) and the mouthpiece of a hunting horn (1410), which suggest a comparison with Middle English flouen (“to flow, blow steadily”) and Old French fluie (“stream”).[2] Etymonline offers the same link, or else Middle Dutch vluwe, which it ties to flow.[3] The OED reports comparison with the early modern Dutch word vloegh (“flutings of a column”), and suggests that the first reference may be to the splayed sides of chimneys in 16th-century houses, which a Norfolk dialect use would support.[5] Dictionary.com takes it as perhaps representing Old English flēwsa (“a flowing”), with a form in -s read as a plural.[10] Johnson knew no etymology unless it came from the past tense of fly.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A chimney: 1582, in Oxford records printed by W. H. Turner,[5][6] in the spelling flew.[2][8] Dictionary.com dates the word 1555–65.[10] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English treat the mouthpiece of a hunting horn, which the Middle English Dictionary records about 1410, as its first sense.[12][9][13]

Semantic evolution

A flue was at first a chimney, and later a smoke duct inside one, a sense then extended to channels for conveying heat, such as a hot-air passage in a wall.[5][12] Etymonline adds that it originally meant a small chimney in a furnace joined to the main one.[3] Johnson (1755) defined it as a small pipe or chimney for air, heat or smoke.[11] Coal mining used it for a sloping chute in 1774, and organ builders from 1879 for the wind-way of a mouth pipe.[5] From 1821 slang used it for the pawnbroker's spout, so that in flue meant "in pawn" and up the flue "pawned", or "dead".[5] Green's Dictionary of Slang also records a verb "to put in pawn", and a bawdy sense, the vagina, from 1620.[14] As a plain word for a chimney it is now dialectal.[6]

Timeline

  • 1582 – a chimney.[5][6][2]
  • 1774 – in coal mining, a sloping trough for conveying coal.[5]
  • 1787 – in Norfolk, the coping of a gable.[5][15]
  • 1821 – slang, a pawnbroker's spout.[5]
  • 1879 – in organ building, the wind-way of a mouth pipe.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A channel in a chimney that carries smoke and hot gases to the open air.[6][10][16][5]
  2. A pipe or passage for air, gas or heat, such as a hot-air passage in a wall or a tube in a boiler.[6][10][5]
  3. (music) The narrow slit in an organ pipe through which air is directed, or the air channel leading to the lip of a recorder or similar instrument.[10][16][5][6]
  4. (dialectal) A chimney.[6]
  5. (slang) A pawnbroker's spout: in flue means pawned, and up the flue pawned or dead.[5]

Word family

  • flue pipe
  • flue stop

flue2 fluffy down

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1589 A. Fleming's translation of Virgil's Georgics
Borrowed from
West Flemish vluwe
Ultimate origin
French velu

Etymology

The word for the fluffy down is apparently borrowed from West Flemish borrowed from Flemish vluwe,[12][6][17] which comes from French velu (“shaggy, hairy”).[6][4][5] The OED itself calls the English word of unknown origin, while comparing the Flemish one, and it adds that fluweel (“velvet”) and Medieval Latin fluetum (“velvet”) are believed to come from the same French adjective.[5] Further back, Klein traces the French adjective to Late Latin villūtus, corresponding to Latin villōsus (“hairy”).[4] Barnhart and Etymonline leave a choice between vellus (“fleece”) and villus (“tuft of hair”).[2][3] Barnhart and Etymonline also give an early form floow.[2][3] The word fluff, recorded from 1790, is probably an alteration of it.[6][8][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A woolly or downy substance, down, nap: 1589, in A. Fleming's translation of Virgil's Georgics.[5][2]

Semantic evolution

Weekley says the word was at first used of rabbits and hares,[17] and Coles (1679), quoted by Wright, has "the flue of a rabbet".[15] The general sense of down or nap died out after 1823,[5] while from 1747 the word was used of the light stuff formed by floating particles of cotton or down, that is, fluff.[5][12] Before 1849 it could be any light floating particle, in Beddoes.[5] English dialects in Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, East Anglia and the Isle of Wight used it for the soft dust swept up in a bedroom.[15] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also records it for a soft feather vane, as in ostrich plumes.[6]

Timeline

  • 1589 – a woolly or downy substance, nap (obsolete by 1823).[5][2]
  • 1747 – the light stuff formed by floating particles of cotton or down.[5][12]
  • before 1849 – any light floating particle.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Soft fluffy lint or dust: Flue had gathered behind the wardrobe.[6][5][15]
  2. A soft feather vane freed from the quill, as of an ostrich.[6]
  3. Any light floating particle.[5]
  4. (obsolete, 1589–1823) A woolly or downy substance; nap.[5][12]

Word family

  • fluey

Usage notes

A kind of fishing net, recorded from 1363, is from Middle Dutch vluwe, and is akin to flow.[13][6][7][12] Dialect adjectives mean "shallow, splayed" and "sickly, delicate", both of unknown origin.[12][15] The nautical word for the fluke of an anchor or harpoon is of obscure origin,[5] and a farrier's lancet (1790) is apparently a corruption of fleam.[5][15] Dictionary.com lists flew and flu as words easily confused with this spelling.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c d e f Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  14. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  15. ^ a b c d e f Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  16. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  17. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray

Related etymologies

  • stump · also from West Flemish
  • hunk · also from West Flemish
Cite this entry

“Flue.” Etymologically, 6 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/flue. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

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