fluxion
/ˈflʌkʃən/
noun
- A continuous change or flow; the process of flowing or changing.
- The fluxion of the river carved new paths through the valley over centuries.
- In physics class, we studied the fluxion of heat through different materials.
- The artist captured the fluxion of light and shadow in her painting.
- In mathematics (historical), the rate of change of a variable; an early term for derivative in calculus.
- The student struggled to understand the concept of fluxion in the history of calculus.
- The textbook explained that a fluxion measures how quickly a quantity changes over time.
- Newton used the term fluxion to describe what we now call the derivative of a function.