underflow

flow (fləʊ)
—vb
1.	(of liquids) to move or be conveyed as in a stream
2.	(of blood) to circulate around the body
3.	to move or progress freely as if in a stream: the crowd flowed into the building
4.	to proceed or be produced continuously and effortlessly: ideas flowed from her pen
5.	to show or be marked by smooth or easy movement
6.	to hang freely or loosely: her hair flowed down her back
7.	to be present in abundance: wine flows at their parties
8.	an informal word for menstruate
9.	Compare ebb (of tide water) to advance or rise
10.	(tr) to cover or swamp with liquid; flood
11.	(of rocks such as slate) to yield to pressure without breaking so that the structure and arrangement of the constituent minerals are altered
—n
12.	the act, rate, or manner of flowing: a fast flow
13.	a continuous stream or discharge
14.	continuous progression
15.	the advancing of the tide
16.	a stream of molten or solidified lava
17.	the amount of liquid that flows in a given time
18.	an informal word for menstruation
19.	(Scot)
	a.  a marsh or swamp
	b.  an inlet or basin of the sea
	c.  (capital when part of a name): Scapa Flow
20.	flow of spirits natural happiness
[Old English flōwan; related to Old Norse flōa, Middle Low German vlōien, Greek plein to float, Sanskrit plavate he swims]

flow

"I wash," pleo "swim, go by sea;" L. pluere "to rain;" O.C.S. plovo "to flow, navigate;" Lith. pilu "to pour out," plauti "rinse"). The weak form predominated from 14c., but strong pp. flown is occasionally attested through 18c. Related: Flowed; flowing.

flow (flō)
v. flowed, flow·ing, flows

1. To move or run smoothly with unbroken continuity.

2. To circulate, as the blood in the body.

3. To menstruate.

n.

1. The smooth motion characteristic of fluids.

2. The volume of fluid or gas passing a given point per unit of time.

3. menstrual discharge.

flow definition in. to menstruate. : She's flowing and could go swimming.

underflow definition

programming
(or "floating point underflow", "floating underflow", after "overflow") A condition that can occur when the result of a floating-point operation would be smaller in magnitude (closer to zero, either positive or negative) than the smallest quantity representable. Underflow is actually (negative) overflow of the exponent of the floating point quantity. For example, an eight-bit twos complement exponent can represent multipliers of 2^-128 to 2^127. A result less than 2^-128 would cause underflow.
Depending on the processor, the programming language and the run-time system, underflow may set a status bit, raise an exception or generate a hardware interrupt or some combination of these effects. Alternatively, it may just be ignored and zero substituted for the unrepresentable value, though this might lead to a later divide by zero error which cannot be so easily ignored.
(2006-11-09)