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flush v.
1. [common] To delete something, usually
superfluous, or to abort an operation. "All that nonsense has
been flushed." 2. [Unix/C] To force buffered I/O to disk, as with
an `Flush' was standard ITS terminology for aborting an output
operation; one spoke of the text that would have been printed, but
was not, as having been flushed. It is speculated that this term
arose from a vivid image of flushing unwanted characters by hosing
down the internal output buffer, washing the characters away before
they could be printed. The Unix/C usage, on the other hand, was
propagated by the
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