# floor
## English
### Etymology

Inherited from Middle English flor, flore, from Old English flōr (“floor, pavement, ground, bottom”), from Proto-West Germanic *flōr, from Proto-Germanic *flōraz (“flat surface, floor, plain”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂ros (“floor”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂- (“flat”).
Cognate with Scots flair, Scots flure, fluir (“floor”), Saterland Frisian Floor (“floor”), West Frisian flier (“floor”), Dutch vloer (“floor”), German Low German Floor (“entry hall”), German Flur (“field, floor, entrance hall”), Swedish flor (“floor of a cow stall”), Irish urlár (“floor”), Scottish Gaelic làr (“floor, ground, earth”), Welsh llawr (“floor, ground”), Latin plānus (“level, flat”).

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) enPR: flô, IPA: /flɔː/
* Audio (UK):(file)
* (General American) enPR: flôr, IPA: /floɹ/, [flo̞ɹ]
* Audio (US):(file)
* (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) enPR: flōr, IPA: /flo(ː)ɹ/
* (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA: /floə/
* (non-rhotic, dough–door merger, African-American Vernacular) IPA: /floʊ/
* Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)
* Homophones: flaw (non-rhotic); flow, floe (dough–door merger)

### Noun

floor (plural floors)
* (countable) The interior bottom or surface of a house or building; the supporting surface of a room.
    The room has a wooden floor.
** 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0016:A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.
* (geology, biology, chiefly with a modifier) The bottom surface of a natural structure, entity, or space (e.g. cave, forest, ocean, desert, etc.); the ground (surface of the Earth).
    The leaves covering the forest floor provide many hiding-places for small animals.
    Many sunken ships rest on the ocean floor.
    The floor of a cave served the refugees as a home.
    The pit floor showed where a ring of post holes had been.
* (UK, dialectal, colloquial) The ground.
    After stepping off the bus, my wallet fell on the floor.
* (construction, architecture) A structure formed of beams, girders, etc, with proper covering, which divides a building horizontally into storeys/stories.
* The supporting surface or platform of a structure such as a bridge.
    Wooden planks of the old bridge's floor were nearly rotten.
* (architecture, countable) A storey/story of a building.
    For years we lived on the third floor.
** 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 19, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:When Timothy and Julia hurried up the staircase to the bedroom floor, where a considerable commotion was taking place, Tim took Barry Leach with him. He had him gripped firmly by the arm, since he felt it was not safe to let him loose, and he had no immediate idea what to do with him.
* In a parliament, the part of the house assigned to the members, as opposed to the viewing gallery.
* (by extension) The right to speak at a given time during a debate or other public event.
    Will the senator from Arizona yield the floor?
    The mayor often gives a lobbyist the floor.
* (nautical) That part of the bottom of a vessel on each side of the keelson which is most nearly horizontal.
* (mining) A horizontal, flat ore body; the rock underlying a stratified or nearly horizontal deposit.
* (mining) The bottom of a pit, pothole or mine.
* (mathematics) The largest integer less than or equal to a given number.
    The floor of 4.5 is 4.
* (gymnastics) An event performed on a floor-like carpeted surface; floor exercise
* (gymnastics) A floor-like carpeted surface for performing gymnastic movements.
* (finance) A lower limit or minimum on a price or rate, a price floor. Opposite of a cap or ceiling.
* A dance floor.
** 1983, "Maniac", Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky:
    She's a maniac, maniac on the floor / And she's dancing like she never danced before
** 1987, "Walk the Dinosaur", Was (Not Was):
    Open the door, get on the floor / Everybody walk the dinosaur
* The trading floor of a stock exchange, pit; the area in which business is conducted at a convention or exhibition.
* The area of a casino where gambling occurs.
** 2004, Tim Hatton, Tock Tock Birds: A Spider in the Web of International Terrorism‎, page 284:At each table stood a young, slim, poker-faced croupier serving the punters who anxiously watched the turning of the cards. The next two floors were similar though not quite as spectacular and the stakes were lower.
* The area of an establishment where food and drink are served to customers.
** 1947 March 18, U.S. Government Printing Office, Proceedings and Debates of the Congress, Eightieth Congress, First Session, page 2206:The conference started as an impromptu session in the coffee shop this morning when waitresses walked off the floor rather than serve four Negro men and women delegates.

#### Synonyms

* (bottom part of a room): see Thesaurus:floor
* (right to speak): possession (UK)

#### Antonyms

* ceiling

#### Derived terms

* 4-on-the-floor
* back to the floor
* barnfloor
* cornfloor
* cross the floor
* dance floor
* deck floor
* drill floor
* earth floor
* earth-floor
* first floor
* floorage
* floorball
* floorboard
* floor box
* floor broker
* floorcare
* floorcest
* floor cloth
* floorcloth
* floorcovering
* floor cramp
* floordrobe
* floor effect
* floorer
* floor exercise
* floor-filler
* floorful
* floor function
* floor general
* floorgrip
* floorhand
* floorhead
* floor heating
* floor hockey
* floor it
* floor lamp
* floor-length
* floorless
* floorlet
* floor light
* floorlike
* floorman
* floor manager
* floor mat
* floormat
* floormate
* floor model
* floor one could eat off
* floorpan
* floorperson
* floor piano
* floor plan
* floor plan lending
* floorplanning
* floorplate
* floor puzzle
* floorset
* floor show, floorshow
* floorspace, floor space
* floor-through
* floor tile
* floortime
* floor trader
* floor-walker
* floorwalking
* floorward
* floorwards
* floorway
* floorwise
* floorwoman
* floorwork
* Four Floors of Whores
* four-on-the-floor
* four on the floor
* four-to-the-floor
* give the floor
* ground-floor
* ground floor
* have the floor
* hit the floor
* hold the floor
* house floor
* killing floor
* living floor
* low-floor
* malt floor
* Marley floor
* mezzanine floor
* midfloor
* mop the floor with someone
* multifloor
* nightingale floor
* nonfloor
* ocean floor
* office floor plate
* on the cutting room floor
* on the floor
* open floor plan
* pelvic floor
* pick oneself up off the floor
* price floor
* pull up a floor
* refloor
* rooted to the floor
* sales floor
* seafloor
* sea-floor spreading
* second floor
* shiny-floor
* shop floor
* showfloor
* skill floor
* subfloor
* take the floor
* tear up the dance floor
* the floor is lava
* thirteenth floor
* thrashing-floor
* thrashing floor
* threshing floor
* threshing-floor
* through the floor
* top floor
* trading floor
* underfloor
* upfloor
* valley floor
* walk the floor
* wipe the floor
* wipe the floor with someone

#### Related terms

* flooring
* mezzanine

#### Translations
### Verb

floor (third-person singular simple present floors, present participle flooring, simple past and past participle floored)
* (transitive) To cover or furnish with a floor.
    floor a house with pine boards
** 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, […].
* To strike down or lay level with the floor; to knock down.
** 1821, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, volume 8, page 67:Sam floored him perpetually, and beat his face to a jelly, without getting a scratch.
* (informal, dated) To hang (a picture on exhibition) near the base of a wall, where it cannot easily be seen.
    Antonym: sky
* (driving, transitive, slang) To push (a pedal) down to the floor, especially to accelerate.
    our driver floored the pedal
** 2008, Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed, Ch.7, at p.161:
    I don't remember much about the flight from Chicago to Denver. We landed a little after eleven, and I ran through the airport, ran to my car. Floored it most of the way home.
* (informal, transitive) To silence by a conclusive answer or retort.
    floor an opponent
** c. 1827-1833, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes on Hacket:Floored or crushed by him.
* (informal, transitive, usually passive voice) To amaze or greatly surprise.
    We were floored by his confession.
** 2021 June 3, Katherine Eban, “The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins”, in Vanity Fair‎:Some of the attendees were “absolutely floored,” said an official familiar with the proceedings. That someone in the U.S. government could “make an argument that is so nakedly against transparency, in light of the unfolding catastrophe, was…shocking and disturbing.”
* (colloquial, transitive) To finish or make an end of.
    floor a college examination
** 1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], Tom Brown at Oxford: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, →OCLC:I've floored my little-go work
* (mathematics) To set a lower bound.
    floored division

#### Translations
### References

* ↑ Rossiter W[orthington] Raymond (1881) “Floor”, in A Glossary of Mining and Metallurgical Terms. […], Easton, Pa.: [American] Institute [of Mining Engineers], […], →OCLC.

### Further reading

* Floor (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* Floor in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

### Anagrams

* Floro

## Hawaiian Creole
### Noun

floor
* (countable) floor (the interior bottom or surface of a house or building; the supporting surface of a room)
** 2000, “James 2”, in Joseph Grimes, transl., Da Jesus Book: Hawaii Pidgin New Testament‎, Wycliffe Bible Translators, →ISBN, page 627:An den you guys tink, “Eh! Da guy wit da nice kine clotheses, check um out!” Den you guys make nice to him, an you tell um, “Come! Sit down hea on dis good seat!” But you tell da poor guy, “Eh, you! Stand ova dea!” o, “Sit down on da floor by my feet!”You look at the one wearing beautiful clothes and say, ‘Take the honored seat,’ but to the poor man you say, ‘Stand over there or sit on the floor.’

## Middle English
### Noun

floor
* Alternative form of flor