floater – English noun declension

English noun forms of floater

Noun: floater
Singularfloater
Pluralfloaters

Sample Sentences

  • Great God of VVaters [i.e., Neptune], vvhoſe extended Svvay / Is next to his, vvhom Heav'n and Earth obey: / Let not the Suit of Venus thee diſpleaſe, / Pity the Floaters on th' Ionian Seas. [1717, Laurence Eusden, “Book IV. [Alcithöe and Her Sisters Transform’d to Bats.]”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 126:]
  • A dock worker saw him floating against a dock pier and called the police. Condition of the body they thought a floater that had been hit by a boat and cut by the prop. [2017 September 18, E. J. Stauffer, chapter 3, in The Drowning, Bloomington, Ind.: Archway Publishing, →ISBN:]
  • 'The murdered girl was working for us, for the department.' / 'A floater?' / 'No. Permanent; warranty contract; the lot.' [1967, Len Deighton, chapter 14, in An Expensive Place to Die, London: Hamlyn Publishing Group for the Companion Book Club, →OCLC, page 90:]
  • About an hour later a ration lorry found them, and the men were woken again, this time to a good meal of bully stew and floaters – suet dumplings – followed by cold rice pudding with jam. [2009, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, chapter 9, in The Fallen Kings ([The Morland] Dynasty; 32), London: Sphere, published 2010, →ISBN, page 204:]
  • He left a floater in the toilet.
  • The floater is a high arcing shot that is commonly used to get the ball over taller defenders in the paint. [2014, Tarrence Garrison, Basketball Essentials: Learn, Improve, Dominate, [Scotts Valley, Calif.]: [CreateSpace], →ISBN:]
  • Replace your leather sandals with rubber slippers, sandals or floaters. They don't soak water well and why in this world would you want to spoil your expensive leather footwear in puddles? [2017 September 1, Mansi Mahendru, “How to Dress Up during Monsoon: Six Tips”, in Divesh Nath, editor, Woman’s Era, volume 44, number 1050, New Delhi: Paresh Nath, Delhi Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 16, columns 1–2:]
  • Suddenly, for no reason, in the middle of the night, or even in the middle of the jolliest party, she would remember an ancient floater—just like that, à propos de bottes—would remember and be overcome by a feeling of self-reproach and retrospective shame. […] One could do one's best; but one could never really persuade oneself that the floater hadn't happened. Imagination might struggle to annihilate the odious memory; but it never had power to win a decisive victory. [1925, Aldous Huxley, chapter I, in Those Barren Leaves […], London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, part I (An Evening at Mrs. Aldwinkle’s), page 9:]
  • He greeted William with cordiality. "Ah, Boot, how are you? Don't think I've had the pleasure before. Know your work well of course. Sit down. Have a cigarette or"—had he made a floater?—"or do you prefer your churchwarden?" [1938 May, Evelyn Waugh, chapter 2, in Scoop: A Novel about Journalists, uniform edition, London: Chapman & Hall, published 1948 (1951 printing), →OCLC, book I (The Stitch Service), section 3, page 26:]
  • I must let her know I'm here and put her in touch with the general situation so she will be warned against making any floaters. [1949 September 9, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter 7, in The Mating Season, Harmondsworth, Middlesex [London]: Penguin Books, published 1957, →OCLC, page 72:]
  • One prisoner came to me and asked if I had anything to read. As I hadn’t, he said he would bring me some reading. The next day he arrived with two serious books under his shirt. ‘Floaters’ [i.e. unofficially circulated books] had also come into the prison: you could either find them in the library, or they would be given to someone else to keep away from the screws—they were never openly visible. [1991, Michael Tippett, “The Heart’s Assurance”, in Those Twentieth Century Blues: An Autobiography, London: Hutchinson, →ISBN, page 143:]
  • His [Gordon Frank Newman’s] books were ‘floaters’, banned by the borstal, but copies were smuggled in and from wing to wing. We used to rip the covers off them cos if you got caught with one it was seven days block. [2000 November, Julian Broadhead, interviewer, quoting Noel “Razor” Smith, “The Prison Writing Interview”, in Julian Broadhead, Laura Kerr, editors, Prison Writing 2001: A Collection of Fact, Fiction and Verse, number 15, Winchester, Hampshire: Waterside Press, →ISBN, page 9:]
  • [Rule] 477.(1) The boxer for a game of triple penny two-up, or a floor manager, may declare a spin invalid if the spin is a floater. […] [Rule 477.](6) In this section—"floater" means a spin in which at least 1 of the coins does not turn over in the air at least once. [1998 July 27, Casino Gaming Amendment Rule (No. 2) 1998 (Subordinate Legislation 1998 No. 233), [Brisbane, Qld.]: Queensland Government, archived from the original on 30 Jul 2004, pages 7–8:]
  • ["]Suppose I should tell you that there's a permanent order in the sheriff's office, left there by the old sheriff, that if I ever use your name or admit I'm your wife I'll get a floater out of the county and out of the state. Does that tempt you?" / "Tempt me to do what?" / "To get me floated and take all the money." [1952 September 19, John Steinbeck, chapter 31, in East of Eden, New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, →OCLC, book 3, section 1, page 383:]

Etymology

From float + -er (suffix forming agent nouns). Compare Old English flota (“boat, ship", also "sailor, pirate”, literally “floater”), whence Middle English flote (“a fleet of ships", also, "a float, flotation device”). See: Old English Nouns 'flota', Middle English Nouns 'flote'.