floor
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: flô
ipa: /flɔː/
enpr: flôr
ipa: /flɔɹ/
ipa: [flo̞ɹ]
note: rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger
enpr: flōr
ipa: /flo(ː)ɹ/
note: rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger
note: non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger
ipa: /floə/
note: non-rhotic, dough–door merger, African-American Vernacular
ipa: /floʊ/
rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)
homophone: flaw (non-rhotic)
homophone: flow
homophone: floe (dough–door merger)
Forms: form: floors
form: flooring
form: floored
form: floored
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, fluir (“floor”), Saterland Frisian Floor (“floor”), West Frisian flier (“floor”), Dutch vloer (“floor”), German Flur (“field, floor, entrance hall”), German Low German Floor (“entry hall”), Luxembourgish Flouer (“countryside, farmland”), Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish flor (“floor of a cow stall”), Irish urlár (“floor”), Scottish Gaelic làr (“floor, ground, earth”), Welsh llawr (“floor, ground”), Latin plānus (“level, flat”).
Senses: examples: text: floor a house with pine boards
text: 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,[…].
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
glosses: To cover or furnish with a floor.
examples: text: Sam floored him perpetually, and beat his face to a jelly, without getting a scratch.
ref: 1821, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, volume 8, page 67:
glosses: To strike down or lay level with the floor; to knock down.
antonyms: sky
glosses: To hang (a picture on exhibition) near the base of a wall, where it cannot easily be seen.
examples: text: our driver floored the pedal
text: 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.
ref: 2008, Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed, Ch.7, at p.161
qualifier: driving
glosses: To push (a pedal) down to the floor, especially to accelerate.
examples: text: floor an opponent
text: Floored or crushed by him.
ref: c. 1827-1833, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes on Hacket:
glosses: To silence by a conclusive answer or retort.
examples: text: We were floored by his confession.
text: 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.”
ref: 2021 June 3, Katherine Eban, “The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins”, in Vanity Fair:
qualifier: usually passive voice
glosses: To amaze or greatly surprise.
examples: text: floor a college examination
text: I've floored my little-go work
ref: 1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], Tom Brown at Oxford: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, →OCLC:
glosses: To finish or make an end of.
examples: text: floored division
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: To set a lower bound.