Vacuum technology

One verb on this list looks as if it could hardly go wrong. Fluten belongs with die Flut, a close cousin of « flood », and an English reader duly pictures water pouring into something. In a vacuum lab no water is involved. Die Kammer fluten means letting gas back in until the chamber is at atmospheric pressure again, usually dry nitrogen through a valve called das Flutventil, and English says « vent » for exactly that. The trap works the other way round too: entlüften, which looks like the natural translation of « vent », means taking air out, as when a radiator or a brake line is bled. So a German operating manual that says vor dem Öffnen fluten is asking for the opposite of flooding in the everyday sense and the opposite of what entlüften would do. The picture behind the verb is not liquid but pressure rushing back in.