floating

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: float=ing

CIDE DICTIONARY

floating, a. 

•  Buoyed upon or in a fluid; a, the floating timbers of a wreck; floating motes in the air.  [1913 Webster]
•  Free or lose from the usual attachment; as, the floating ribs in man and some other animals.  [1913 Webster]
•  Not funded; not fixed, invested, or determined; as, floating capital; a floating debt.  [1913 Webster]

  "Trade was at an end. Floating capital had been withdrawn in great masses from the island."  [1913 Webster]

Floating anchor (Naut.), a drag or sea anchor; drag sail. -- Floating battery (Mil.), a battery erected on rafts or the hulls of ships, chiefly for the defense of a coast or the bombardment of a place. -- Floating bridge. (a) A bridge consisting of rafts or timber, with a floor of plank, supported wholly by the water; a bateau bridge. See Bateau. (b) (Mil.) A kind of double bridge, the upper one projecting beyond the lower one, and capable of being moved forward by pulleys; -- used for carrying troops over narrow moats in attacking the outworks of a fort. (c) A kind of ferryboat which is guided and impelled by means of chains which are anchored on each side of a stream, and pass over wheels on the vessel, the wheels being driven by stream power. (d) The landing platform of a ferry dock. -- Floating cartilage (Med.), a cartilage which moves freely in the cavity of a joint, and often interferes with the functions of the latter. -- Floating dam. (a) An anchored dam. (b) A caisson used as a gate for a dry dock. -- Floating derrick, a derrick on a float for river and harbor use, in raising vessels, moving stone for harbor improvements, etc. -- Floating dock. (Naut.) See under Dock. -- Floating harbor, a breakwater of cages or booms, anchored and fastened together, and used as a protection to ships riding at anchor to leeward. Knight. -- Floating heart (Bot.), a small aquatic plant (Limnanthemum lacunosum) whose heart-shaped leaves float on the water of American ponds. -- Floating island, a dish for dessert, consisting of custard with floating masses of whipped cream or white of eggs. -- Floating kidney. (Med.) See Wandering kidney, under Wandering. -- Floating light, a light shown at the masthead of a vessel moored over sunken rocks, shoals, etc., to warn mariners of danger; a light-ship; also, a light erected on a buoy or floating stage. -- Floating liver. (Med.) See Wandering liver, under Wandering. -- Floating pier, a landing stage or pier which rises and falls with the tide. -- Floating ribs (Anat.), the lower or posterior ribs which are not connected with the others in front; in man they are the last two pairs. -- Floating screed (Plastering), a strip of plastering first laid on, to serve as a guide for the thickness of the coat. -- Floating threads (Weaving), threads which span several other threads without being interwoven with them, in a woven fabric.

floating, n. 

•  Floating threads. See Floating threads, above.  [1913 Webster]
•  The second coat of three-coat plastering.  Knight.  [1913 Webster]
•  The process of rendering oysters and scallops plump by placing them in fresh or brackish water; -- called also fattening, plumping, and laying out.  [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

floating, adj. not settled in a definite place; fluctuating; variable (the floating population).

Idiom

floating anchor a sea anchor. floating bridge
1 a bridge on pontoons etc.
2 a ferry working on chains. floating debt a debt repayable on demand, or at a stated time. floating dock a floating structure usable as a dry dock.
floating kidney
1 an abnormal condition in which the kidneys are unusually movable.
2 such a kidney.
floating light
1 a lightship.
2 a lifebuoy with a lantern. floating point Computing a decimal etc. point that does not occupy a fixed position in the numbers processed. floating rib any of the lower ribs, which are not attached to the breastbone. floating voter a voter without allegiance to any political party.

Derivative

floatingly adv.

THESAURUS

floating

Australian crawl, Hare system, PR, absentee voting, adrift, afloat, aquaplaning, aquatics, awash, backstroke, ballot-box stuffing, balneation, bathe, bathing, breaststroke, buoyant, butterfly, card voting, circumforaneous, clear, colonization, coming out, crawl, cumulative system, cumulative voting, curtain raiser, debut, discursive, divagatory, diving, dog paddle, drifting, election fraud, embarkation, embarkment, errant, fin, first appearance, fishtail, flapper, flipper, flitting, floatable, floaty, flotation, footloose, footloose and fancy-free, free, fugitive, gadding, gypsy-like, gypsyish, inaugural address, inauguration, induction, initiation, installation, installment, introduction, landloping, launching, list system, loose, maiden speech, meandering, migrational, migratory, natation, nomad, nomadic, opener, plural system, preferential system, preferential voting, preliminary, proportional representation, proxy voting, rambling, ranging, repeating, rickety, roaming, roving, shaky, shifting, sidestroke, single system, single transferrable vote, single-member district, straggling, straying, strolling, supernatant, surfboarding, surfing, swim, swimming, traipsing, transient, transitory, transmigratory, treading water, unanchored, unbound, undone, unfastened, unfixed, unstuck, untied, unveiling, vagabond, vagrant, vote, voting, voting machine, wading, wandering, water-borne, waterskiing

ROGET THESAURUS

floating

Levity

N levity, lightness, imponderability, buoyancy, volatility, feather, dust, mote, down, thistle, down, flue, cobweb, gossamer, straw, cork, bubble, balloon, float, buoy, ether, air, leaven, ferment, barm, yeast, lighter-than-air balloon, helium balloon, hydrogen balloon, hot air balloon, convection, thermal draft, thermal, light, subtile, airy, imponderous, imponderable, astatic, weightless, ethereal, sublimated, gossamery, suberose, suberous, uncompressed, volatile, buoyant, floating, portable, light as a feather, light as a thistle, light as air, lighter than air, rise like a balloon, float like a balloon.

Faintness

N faintness, faint sound, whisper, breath, undertone, underbreath, murmur, hum, susurration, tinkle, still small voice, hoarseness, raucity, inaudible, scarcely audible, just audible, low, dull, stifled, muffled, hoarse, husky, gentle, soft, faint, floating, purling, flowing, whispered, liquid, soothing, dulcet, susurrant, susurrous, in a whisper, with bated breath, sotto voce, between the teeth, aside, piano, pianissimo, d la sourdine, out of earshot inaudibly, (ii) SPECIFIC SOUNDS.

News

N news, information, piece of news, budget of news, budget of information, intelligence, tidings, word, advice, aviso, message, dispatch, despatch, telegram, cable, marconigram, wire, communication, errand, embassy, report, rumor, hearsay, on dit, flying rumor, news stirring, cry, buzz, bruit, fame, talk, oui dire, scandal, eavesdropping, town tattle, table talk, tittle tattle, canard, topic of the day, idea afloat, bulletin, fresh news, stirring news, glad tidings, flash, news just in, on-the-spot coverage, live coverage, old story, old news, stale news, stale story, chestnut, narrator, newsmonger, scandalmonger, talebearer, telltale, gossip, tattler, journalism, media, news media, the press, the information industry, newspaper, magazine, tract, journal, gazette, publication, radio, television, ticker (electronic information transmission), United Press International, UPI, Associated Press, AP, The Dow Jones News Service, DJ, The New York Times News Service, NYT, Reuters, TASS, The Nikkei, newscaster, newsman, newswoman, reporter, journalist, correspondent, foreign correspondent, special correspondent, war correspondent, news team, news department, anchorman, anchorwoman, sportscaster, weatherman, press secretary, public relations department, public relations man, many-tongued, rumored, publicly rumored, currently rumored, currently reported, rife, current, floating, afloat, going about, in circulation, in every one's mouth, all over the town, in progress, live, on the spot, in person, as the story goes, as the story runs, as they say, it is said, by telegraph, by wireless, airy tongues that syllable men's names, what's up?, what's the latest?, what's new?, what's the latest poop?.