floater

Definitions

  • WordNet 3.6
    • n floater an insurance policy covering loss of movable property (e.g. jewelry) regardless of its location
    • n floater an object that floats or is capable of floating
    • n floater a swimmer who floats in the water
    • n floater a voter who votes illegally at different polling places in the same election
    • n floater an employee who is reassigned from job to job as needed
    • n floater a wanderer who has no established residence or visible means of support
    • n floater a debt instrument with a variable interest rate tied to some other interest rate (e.g. the rate paid by T-bills)
    • n floater spots before the eyes caused by opaque cell fragments in the vitreous humor and lens "floaters seem to drift through the field of vision"
    • ***
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
    • Floater A float for indicating the height of a liquid surface.
    • Floater (Politics) A person who votes illegally in various polling places or election districts, either under false registration made by himself or under the name of some properly registered person who has not already voted.
    • Floater (Politics) A person, as a delegate to a convention or a member of a legislature, who represents an irregular constituency, as one formed by a union of the voters of two counties neither of which has a number sufficient to be allowed a (or an extra) representative of its own.
    • Floater (Politics) A voter who shifts from party to party, esp. one whose vote is purchasable.
    • Floater One who floats or swims.
    • ***
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
    • n floater One who or that which floats or fluctuates; a person or thing in a floating condition, literally or figuratively.
    • n floater One who floats game.
    • n floater A registering float on a graduated stick, designed to indicate a level attained between periods of observation.
    • n floater In political slang, a voter who is not definitely attached to any party; especially, a voter whose vote may be purchased.
    • n floater A dead human body found floating in the water.
    • n floater A dead human body found floating in the water.
    • n floater In Mississippi and Tennessee, a representative in the State legislature who may be elected indifferently from either of two or more counties.
    • n floater A vat in which hides are tanned.
    • n floater A cask, buoy, or other hermetically sealed vessel containing messages or records and left to drift on the ocean surface in the hope that it will be found by others. See drifter.
    • n floater A floating island.
    • n floater On the stock-exchange, a certificate, bond or other paper, especially one not officially funded or listed, that is accepted as a recognized security.
    • ***

Usage

In literature:

Kelly's woodbox happened to be a convenient place for directing the floaters and the repeaters.
"The Conflict" by David Graham Phillips
Can I call on big stock-jobbers and company floaters like this?
"The Gold Trail" by Harold Bindloss
The floater under him churned a little, but there was no noise.
"Unwise Child" by Gordon Randall Garrett
It is as a floater that he excels in water sports; he rides the waves more lightly and gracefully than any other creature.
"Days Off" by Henry Van Dyke
But the influx of tourists and "floaters" had indicated to him a less arduous form of labor.
"Roosevelt in the Bad Lands" by Hermann Hagedorn
And now Lawrence expected him to do the same thing, and sent up a floater that looked good for a home run.
"The Boy Scout Fire Fighters" by Robert Maitland
There's many a man picked up along the coast as a 'floater' that nobody knows how he drowned.
"El Diablo" by Brayton Norton
At that instant her floater began to bob fiercely up and down.
"Dorothy's Triumph" by Evelyn Raymond
His Floater had burnt out while still sufficiently distant from surface to have the fall stun him.
"Youth" by Isaac Asimov
One might call her a social floater, and not be far out of the way either.
"The Spiritualists and the Detectives" by Allan Pinkerton
***

In poetry:

"I was first, as old rawhiders all confessed.
Now I'm last of all rough riders, and the best.
Huh, you soft and dainty floaters,
With your a'roplanes and motors --
Huh! are you the great grandchildren of the West!"
"The Legend Of Boastful Bill" by Badger Clark Jr

In news:

I thought I had floaters in my eyes, but instead it was those darn gnats.
965kvki.com
Vasquez's last-second floater pushes Hornets past Jazz 88-86.
wwltv.com
Teton Dam--a floater that won't flush.
flyrodreel.com
Floater 's Robert Wynia strikes me like that.
kink.fm
Last-second floater gives Jazz 103-102 win over Kings.
sltrib.com
Steve Hamilton, 62, ' Floater ' Pitcher for Yankees.
nytimes.com
Steve Hamilton, who pitched for the Yankees in the 1963 and 1964 World Series and is best remembered for a lobbed pitch known as the Folly Floater , died Tuesday at his home in Morehead, Ky.
nytimes.com
Clothes Whores Pet Peeve No 10: The Floater.
pitch.com
Kateryna Lozoba, 20, of Ukraine, stands watch over floaters in the lazy river Thursday afternoon at Sun-N-Fun Lagoon water park in Naples.
marconews.com
My husband had laser blasting done on the floaters in one of his eyes which consisted of four treatments.
naplesnews.com
Detroit scored twice in the seventh inning when the Athletics' Coco Crisp dropped Miguel Cabrera's floater to center.
nytimes.com
Anthony Hickey hit a driving floater in the paint with 1.4 seconds left in overtime, lifting LSU to a 69-67 victory over Mississippi State on Tuesday night.
the-daily-record.com
Mike Conley then missed a floater after Memphis again held Phoenix in check, making it three straight possessions that the Griz failed to tie the score.
commercialappeal.com
Gibb in his manatee floater.
bocabeacon.com
Floater, In Flux, Tap Wielding Heathens.
inlander.com
***

Related words