float
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /fləʊt/
ipa: /floʊt/
rhymes: -əʊt
Forms: form: floats
Etymology: From Middle English flote, from Old English flota (“sailor, boat”), from Proto-West Germanic *flotō, from Proto-Germanic *flutô, from Proto-Indo-European *plewd-.
Senses: examples: text: Attach the float and the weight to the fishing line, above the hook.
text: 'What you need are frogs,' said the veteran. 'Fish them at night. There's nothing like them on big cork floats.'
ref: 1983, The Fisherman Who Laughed, page 40:
glosses: A buoyant device used to support something in water or another liquid.
glosses: A mass of timber or boards fastened together, and conveyed down a stream by the current; a raft.
glosses: A float board.
glosses: A tool similar to a rasp, used in various trades.
examples: text: When pouring a new driveway, you can use a two-by-four as a float.
glosses: A sort of trowel used for finishing concrete surfaces or smoothing plaster.
examples: text: That float covered in roses is very pretty.
glosses: An elaborately decorated trailer or vehicle, intended for display in a parade or pageant.
glosses: A floating toy made of foam, used in swimming pools.
examples: text: As soon as the skies brightened and plum-blossom was out, Paul drove off in the milkman's heavy float up to Willey Farm.
ref: 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 7, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:
glosses: A small vehicle used for local deliveries, especially in the term milk float.
examples: text: Our bank does a nightly sweep of accounts, to adjust the float so we stay within our reserves limit.
topics: business
finance
glosses: Funds committed to be paid but not yet paid.
examples: text: You don't actually need a broker to buy shares in a float when a company is about to be listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.
ref: 2006, “Buying shares in a float”, in Australian Securities and Investments Commission financial tips article, archived from the original on 16 Jul 2005:
topics: business
finance
qualifier: and other Commonwealth countries?
glosses: An offering of shares in a company (or units in a trust) to members of the public, normally followed by a listing on a stock exchange.
examples: text: No sir, your current float is not taken into account, when assets are legally garnished.
topics: banking
business
glosses: The total amount of checks/cheques or other drafts written against a bank account but not yet cleared and charged against the account.
examples: text: We make a lot of interest from our nightly float.
topics: business
insurance
glosses: Premiums taken in but not yet paid out.
examples: text: That routine should not have used an int; it should be a float.
text: If you want to be a scientist or an engineer, learn to say “no” to singles and floats.
ref: 2011, Rubin H. Landau, A First Course in Scientific Computing, page 214:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
programming
sciences
glosses: A floating-point number, especially one that has lower precision than a double.
examples: text: I don't consider anything other than root-beer with vanilla ice cream to be a "real" float.
glosses: A soft beverage with a scoop of ice cream floating in it.
glosses: A small sum of money put in a cashier's till, or otherwise secured, at the start of business, to enable change to be made.
topics: card-games
poker
glosses: A maneuver where a player calls on the flop or turn with a weak hand, with the intention of bluffing after a subsequent community card.
examples: text: I knew that a simple float on the surface of the Merino might catch if I made it big enough to show very much.
ref: 1990, Sharon Alderman, A Handweaver's Notebook, →ISBN, page 82:
text: The appearance of a waffle fabric changes drastically with washing. Yarns differ, but most relax and twist and curl in the long floats when washed; the severe rectilinear design of the waffle cells in unwashed waffle weave fabric will soften dramatically.
ref: 1991, Carol Strickler, editor, A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, Interweave Press, →ISBN, pages 140-141:
topics: business
manufacturing
textiles
weaving
glosses: A weft thread that passes over two or more warp threads (or less commonly, warp over weft).
topics: business
knitting
manufacturing
textiles
glosses: A loose strand of yarn that passes behind one or more stitches when knitting with multiple yarns.
examples: text: Rod Basket with Serpentine Floats
ref: 1991, Rachel Nash Law, Cynthia Wieboldt Taylor, Appalachian White Oak Basketmaking: Handing Down the Basket, page xii:
glosses: A decorative rod that extends over the body of a basket without being attached for part of its length.
topics: automotive
transport
vehicles
glosses: A car carrier or car transporter truck or truck-and-trailer combination.
topics: transport
glosses: A lowboy trailer.
examples: text: Hee being now in Float for Treasure.
ref: 1622, Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [i.e. Francis Bacon], The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, […], London: […] W[illiam] Stansby for Matthew Lownes, and William Barret, →OCLC:
glosses: The act of flowing; flux; flow.
examples: text: The machinery consists of two saws, a polishing table, a float for grinding marble, and a ripping saw for cutting slabs.
ref: 1863 April 24, “Trade News”, in The Building News and Engineering Journal, volume 10, page 324:
text: Float Machinist— One who squares up, faces, noses or chamfers on a float all marble, slate, or similar stones, and including terrazzo or similar compositions.
ref: 1925, Australia. Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, Commonwealth Arbitration Reports, page 557:
text: Next , finishers rub a float — a small and smooth, rectangular piece of wood — over the entire surface, carefully avoiding edges and joints.
ref: 1980, Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, page 215:
text: Floated: Obtained by successive passages with a wooden float on the coat's surface until it is flat and uniform
ref: 2015, M. Clara Gonçalves, Fernanda Margarido, Materials for Construction and Civil Engineering, page 102:
glosses: A polishing block used in marble working; a runner.
glosses: A coal cart.
glosses: A breakdancing move in which the body is held parallel to the floor while balancing on one or both hands.
examples: text: Because margin floats don't collapse together, the actual spacing between two floats sitting next to each other will be 6 pixels […]
ref: 2004, Eric A. Meyer, More Eric Meyer on CSS, page 36:
text: When a float cannot fit next to another float, it moves down below it. A float's position, size, padding, borders, and margins affect the position of adjacent floats and adjacent inline content.
ref: 2007, Michael Bowers, Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns, page 93:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A visual style on a web page that causes the styled elements to float above or beside others.
topics: biology
natural-sciences
glosses: The gas-filled sac, bag, or body of a siphonophore; a pneumatophore.
topics: media
publishing
qualifier: digital typesetting
glosses: Any object (element) whose location in composition (page makeup, pagination) does not flow within body text but rather floats outside of it, usually anchored loosely (in buoy metaphor) to spots within it (citations, callouts): a figure (image), table, box, pull quote, ornament, or other floated element.
Synonyms: sense: shares offered to the public
word: initial public offering
Derived terms: Carley float
clean float
coke float
dead man's float
dirty float
float glass
float-on float-off
floatplane
float switch
float tube
float-zone silicon
free float
hard float
ice-float
information float
managed float
peg float
root beer float
soft float