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underflow

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flow

[floh]
–verb (used without object)
1. to move along in a stream: The river flowed slowly to the sea.
2. to circulate: blood flowing through one's veins.
3. to stream or well forth: Warmth flows from the sun.
4. to issue or proceed from a source: Orders flowed from the office.
5. to menstruate.
6. to come or go as in a stream: A constant stream of humanity flowed by.
7. to proceed continuously and smoothly: Melody flowed from the violin.
8. to hang loosely at full length: Her hair flowed over her shoulders.
9. to abound in something: The tavern flowed with wine.
10. to rise and advance, as the tide (opposed to ebb ).
–verb (used with object)
11. to cause or permit to flow: to flow paint on a wall before brushing.
12. to cover with water or other liquid; flood.
–noun
13. an act of flowing.
14. movement in or as if in a stream.
15. the rate of flowing.
16. the volume of fluid that flows through a passage of any given section during a unit of time: Oil flow of the well was 500 barrels a day.
17. something that flows; stream.
18. an outpouring or discharge of something, as in a stream: a flow of blood.
19. menstruation.
20. an overflowing; flood.
21. the rise of the tide (opposed to ebb ).
22. Machinery. progressive distortion of a metal object under continuous service at high temperature.
23. Physics. the transference of energy: heat flow.

Origin:
bef. 900; (v.) ME flowen, OE flōwan; akin to MLG vlōien, ON flōa; (n.) late ME: surge of a wave, deriv. of the v.


flow⋅a⋅ble, adjective
flow⋅a⋅bil⋅i⋅ty, noun


1. Flow, gush, spout, spurt refer to certain of the movements characteristic of fluids. Flow is the general term: Water flows. A stream of blood flows. To gush is to rush forth copiously from a cavity, in as large a volume as can issue therefrom, as the result of some strong impelling force: The water will gush out if the main breaks. Spout and spurt both imply the ejecting of a liquid from a cavity by some internal impetus given to it. Spout implies a rather steady, possibly well-defined, jet or stream, not necessarily of long duration but always of considerable force: A whale spouts. Spurt implies a forcible, possibly sudden, spasmodic, or intermittent issue or jet: The liquid spurted out suddenly when the bottle cap was pushed in. Spout applies only to liquids; the other terms apply also to gases. 7. run. 9. teem.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To underflow
un·der·flow   (ŭn'dər-flō')   
n.  A data-processing error arising when the absolute value of a computed quantity is smaller than the limits of precision of the computing device, retaining at least one significant digit.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Medical Dictionary

Main Entry: 2flow
Function: noun
1 : the quantity that flows in a certain time
2 : MENSTRUATION
3 : the motion characteristic of fluids
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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Medical Dictionary

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.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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Computing Dictionary

underflow 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)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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