Flush

How to spell flush

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce flush

What does flush mean?

1. verbTo clean or clear something by sending a rush of water through it.
2. verbTo become red in the face, usually from heat, embarrassment, or exertion.
3. adjectiveSet so as to be perfectly level or even with an adjoining surface.
4. nounA hand of playing cards that are all of the same suit.

Flush in a sentence

• verb

  Please flush the toilet after use.

• verb

  His cheeks would flush whenever he had to speak in public.

• adjective

  The carpenter sanded the door until it sat flush with the frame.

• noun

  She won the round with a flush of five hearts.

• verb

  The plumber told her to flush the pipes with hot water.

• verb

  The runners began to flush as the afternoon heat built up.

Where does flush come from?

Language of origin: Other

Flush is a word with a tangled history and probably several roots that have blended together. The sense of liquid suddenly rushing or gushing appears in English from the late 1300s and may be partly imitative, echoing the sound of water spurting out, and partly influenced by the older verb 'flush' meaning to fly up suddenly, as a startled bird breaks from cover. The card-playing sense, a set of cards all of one suit, came in during the 1500s from Old French 'flus' or 'flux', from the Latin 'fluxus' meaning a flowing, since the cards 'flow' together in one suit. The meaning 'level or even with a surface' developed later, perhaps from the idea of a full surface brimming flush with its edges, and the sense 'well supplied with money' draws on the same image of being full to overflowing. Because so many strands fed into it, flush ended up covering reddening skin, rushing water, level edges and a winning hand, all under one short, blunt spelling.

How the word is built

• flush (single root, of imitative or French origin); no separable prefix or suffix