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Flank vs Surface - What's the difference?

flank | surface |

As a noun flank

is flank.

As a verb surface is

.

flank

English

Adjective

(-)
  • (nautical) Maximum (of speed). Historically faster than full'' speed (the most a vessel can sustain without excessive engine wear or risk of damage), now frequently used interchangeably. Typically used in an emergency or during an attack (''All ahead flank! ).
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • (anatomy) The flesh between the last rib and the hip; the side.
  • (cooking) A cut of meat from the flank of an animal.
  • (military) The extreme left or right edge of a military formation, army etc.
  • The side of something, in general senses.
  • * 1918 , (Edgar Rice Burroughs), Chapter VIII
  • Cautiously I approached the flank of the cliffs, where they terminated in an abrupt escarpment as though some all powerful hand had broken off a great section of rock and set it upon the surface of the earth.
  • The outermost strip of a road.
  • (soccer) The wing, one side of the pitch.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=January 23 , author=Alistair Magowan , title=Blackburn 2 - 0 West Brom , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=The hosts also had Paul Robinson to thank for a string of saves, three of them coming against Jerome Thomas, who gave Michel Salgado a torrid time down the left flank .}}
  • That part of the acting surface of a gear wheel tooth that lies within the pitch line.
  • Synonyms

    * (all senses) side * (side of formation) wing

    Derived terms

    * (flesh between the last rib and the hip) flank steak

    Coordinate terms

    * (cut of meat from the flank of an animal) fajita

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To attack the flank(s) of something.
  • To defend the flank(s) of something.
  • To place to the side(s) of something.
  • * Pitt
  • Stately colonnades are flanked with trees.
  • To be placed to the side(s) of something (usually in terms of two objects, one on each side.)
  • surface

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The overside or up-side of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=Foreword citation , passage=A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,
  • The outside hull of a tangible object.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-11, volume=407, issue=8835, page=80, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= The climate of Tibet: Pole-land , passage=Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.}}
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across.}}
  • (lb) Outward or external appearance.
  • :
  • *(Vicesimus Knox) (1752-1821)
  • *:Vain and weak understandings, which penetrate no deeper than the surface .
  • *
  • *:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable,.
  • The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a more-than-two-dimensional space.
  • (lb) That part of the side which is terminated by the flank prolonged, and the angle of the nearest bastion.
  • :(Stocqueler)
  • Synonyms

    * overside * superfice (archaic)

    Derived terms

    * surface mail * surficial

    Verb

  • To provide something with a surface.
  • To apply a surface to something.
  • To rise to the surface.
  • To come out of hiding.
  • For information or facts to become known.
  • To work a mine near the surface.
  • To appear or be found.