Etymograph

English

flow

Flow comes from Middle English flowe, from the verb flowen, from Old English flōwan ‘to flow’, from Proto-Germanic *flōaną ‘to flow’.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*flōaną‘to flow’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*flōan‘to flow’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150flōwan‘to flow’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500flowenas flowe
  5. Middle English, derivedc. 1150–1500flowe
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1897flow

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*flōaną‘to flow’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*flōan‘to flow’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150flōwan‘to flow’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500flowenas flowe
  5. Middle English, derivedc. 1150–1500flowe
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1897flow

Earliest quotation: 1897, Winston Churchill: “Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the…”

The story

The psychology sense “state of focus” was coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in 1975.

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *plew- ‘to flow, swim’

fly, flew, pneumonia, plutonium, plough, fowl, plutocracy, plover, flay, 25 more

through Middle English flowen ‘to spout or trickle’

flue, 2 more

Another origin of flow

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*plew-‘to fly, flow, run’uncertain
  2. Proto-Indo-European, derivedc. 4500–2500 BCE*plōw-uncertainlengthened o-grade form of *plew-
  3. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*flōaną‘to flow’reconstructed
  4. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*flōan‘to flow’reconstructed
  5. Old Englishc. 450–1150flōwan‘to flow’
  6. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500flowen‘to spout or trickle’
  7. Englishtodayflow

Today it means

noun Movement in people or things characterized with a continuous motion, involving either a non solid mass or a multitude.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *flōaną / flow

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