| / English Dictionary |
FLOATING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The act of someone who floats on the water
Synonyms:
floating; natation
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("floating" is a kind of...):
swim; swimming (the act of swimming)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "floating"):
dead-man's float; prone float (a floating position with the face down and arms stretched forward)
Derivation:
float (be afloat either on or below a liquid surface and not sink to the bottom)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Borne up by or suspended in a liquid
Example:
floating seaweed
Classified under:
Similar:
afloat (borne on the water; floating)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Not definitely committed to a party or policy
Example:
floating voters
Classified under:
Similar:
uncommitted (not bound or pledged)
Sense 3
Meaning:
(of a part of the body) not firmly connected; movable or out of normal position
Example:
a floating kidney
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
unfixed (not firmly placed or set or fastened)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Inclined to move or be moved about
Example:
a floating crap game
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
mobile (moving or capable of moving readily (especially from place to place))
Sense 5
Meaning:
Continually changing especially as from one abode or occupation to another
Example:
vagrant hippies of the sixties
Synonyms:
aimless; drifting; floating; vagabond; vagrant
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
unsettled (not settled or established)
III. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb float
Context examples:
Many Antarctic glaciers extend for miles beyond their grounding lines, floating out over the open ocean.
(Huge Cavity in Antarctic Glacier Signals Rapid Decay, NASA)
For he knew that there, floating in the blue above him, was meat, the meat his stomach yearned after so insistently.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Malignant pleural effusion fluid often contains free-floating malignant cells. —2004
(Malignant pleural effusion, NCI Thesaurus)
His staff in one hand and his scrip in the other, with springy step and floating locks, he raced along the forest path, as active and as graceful as a young deer.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Balance problems can make you feel unsteady or as if you were moving, spinning, or floating.
(Balance Problems, NIH: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders)
An infiltrating pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, characterized by the presence of malignant cells floating in pools of mucin.
(Colloid Carcinoma of the Pancreas, NCI Thesaurus)
Then I began to notice that there were some quaint little specks floating in the rays of the moonlight.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
But she was so incorporated with my existence, that it was the idlest of all fancies, and would soon rise out of my reach and sight, like gossamer floating in the air.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
A new study shows that sunlight transforms oil spills on the ocean surface more quickly and significantly than previously thought, limiting the effectiveness of chemical dispersants that break up floating oil.
(Sunlight reduces effectiveness of dispersants used to clean up oil spills, National Science Foundation)
Meltwater ponds fracturing the ice below them may not cause protracted chain reactions that unexpectedly collapse floating ice shelves.
(Reframing the dangers Antarctica's meltwater ponds pose to ice shelves and sea level, National Science Foundation)
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