afloat
Language: English
Part of speech: adv
Pronunciation: ipa: /əˈfloʊt/
ipa: /əˈfləʊt/
enpr: ə-flōtˈ
rhymes: -əʊt
Etymology: From a- + float.
Senses: examples: text: You have so little Brains, that a Penn’orth of Butter melted under ’um, would set ’um afloat:
ref: 1668, John Dryden, Sir Martin Mar-all, London: H. Herringman, act II, page 22:
text: […] I went down to my Boat, got the Water out of her, and got her afloat, loaded all my Cargo in her, and then went Home again for more;
ref: 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 224:
text: Oh why is heaven built so far, / Oh why is earth set so remote? / I cannot reach the nearest star / That hangs afloat.
ref: 1881, Christina Rossetti, “De Profundis”, in A Pageant and Other Poems, London: Macmillan, page 60:
glosses: In or into a state of floating.
examples: text: […] that trade […] may likewise employ many useful hands both ashore and afloat,
ref: 1788, Alexander Jardine, Letters from Barbary, France, Spain, Portugal, &c., London: T. Cadell, Volume 2, Letter 23, p. 236:
text: They was the roughest crew afloat, was Flint’s; the devil himself would have been feared to go to sea with them.
ref: 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 11, in Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC, part II (The Sea Cook), page 88:
text: Navy chow ashore is rarely as good as it is afloat, and for enlisted men it is usually much worse.
ref: 1947, James Michener, “The Strike”, in Tales of the South Pacific, New York: Dial, published 2014, page 315:
antonyms: ashore
glosses: In, or while in, a vessel at sea or on another body of water; at sea.
examples: 1695, Edmund Gibson (translator), Camden’s Britannia, London: A. Swalle, “Staffordshire,”
[…] it [the River Dove] overflows and lays the meadows afloat in April, like another Nile.
synonyms: awash
glosses: Under water (bearing floating objects).
examples: text: setting a lie aflote
ref: 1587, Raphael Holinshed et al., Holinshed’s Chronicles, volume 3, Edward I, page 298:
text: […] I shall not be judged fairly; it will get afloat that I am not a good girl,
ref: 1878, Thomas Hardy, chapter 5, in The Return of the Native, volume 2, London: Smith, Elder, page 163:
text: […] as this example set the discourse about witchcraft afloat, some people, troubled with a similar complaint, began to fancy themselves bewitched too.
ref: 1757, William Burke, Edmund Burke, An Account of the European Settlements in America, London: R. and J. Dodsley, Volume 2, Part 7, Chapter 4, p. 150:
topics: information
glosses: In or into circulation or currency.
raw_tags: of ideas
examples: text: No angry passions rise to disturb the silent progress of the work, […] no irritable humours are set afloat:
ref: 1821, William Hazlitt, Table-Talk, London: John Warren, Essay 1, page 3:
text: […] they knew how to abstain from the overdose of liquor that sets the brain afloat and loosens the tongue.
ref: 1878, John Berwick Harwood, chapter 17, in Helena Lady Harrogate,, volume 1, London: Richard Bentley, page 312:
synonyms: at sea
glosses: In or into a condition of stimulation, arousal, confusion, bewilderment, etc.
raw_tags: of an emotional state