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*flōaną1‘to flow’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*flōan1‘to flow’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150flōwan1‘to flow’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500flowen2as flowe
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500flowe2
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1897flow2

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Middle English flowen
  2. 2 Wiktionary, English flow
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1897, Winston Churchill: “Mr. Cooke at once began a tirade against the…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*flōanąWiktionary, Middle English flowen‘to flow’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*flōanWiktionary, Middle English flowen‘to flow’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150flōwanWiktionary, Middle English flowen‘to flow’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500flowenWiktionary, English flowas flowe
  5. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500floweWiktionary, English flow
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1897flowWiktionary, English flow. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 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.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with flow, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

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

  • fly ← flei ← flēgan ← *fleugan ← *fleuganą
  • flew ← flēag ← *flaug ← *fleuganą ← *plewk-
  • pneumonia ← πνευμονία ← πνεύμων ← πλεύμων ← *pléwmōn
  • plutonium ← Pluto ← Pluto ← Plūtō ← Πλούτων
  • plough ← plouh ← plōh ← *plōgaz ← *ɸlowyos
  • fowl ← foul ← fugol ← *fugl ← *fuglaz
  • plutocracy ← πλουτοκρατία ← πλοῦτος ← πλέω ← *pléwō
  • plover ← plovarius ← pluvia ← pluvius ← pluit
  • flay ← flayen ← flīeġan ← *flaugijaną ← *fleuganą

through Middle English flowen ‘to spout or trickle’

27 more relatives in the full family tree

No ads, ever.

Become a founding member, $29 onceI have a code

Explore everything descended from *flōaną →

Another origin of flow

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*plew-‘to fly, flow, run’uncertain
  2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 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

No ads, ever. This is how the app stays alive.

Become a founding member, $29 onceWear this word, $32Support the app

Today it means

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

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “flow”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Middle English flowen. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *flōaną / flow