floater
(ˈfləʊtə(r))
[f. as prec. + -er.]
One who or that which floats.
1. a. In intransitive senses of the vb. spec. (a) A dead body found floating in water. U.S. slang. (b) A golf-ball capable of floating on water. (c) A mine adrift. (d) A piece of float-ore. (e) (See quot. 1933.) Prison slang.
| 1717 Eusden Ovid's Met. iv, Pity the floaters on th' Ionian seas. 1831 Blackw. Mag. XXX. 15 Halcyons all, fair floaters hung in the sunshine on waveless seas. 1882 Sir R. Payne-Gallwey Fowler in Irel. 27 They [ducks] get no chance of quiet from the floaters. 1885 H. Stopes Malt xi. 133 The proportion of floaters [= ‘floating corns’] depends partly upon the quality of the grain. |
| (a) 1890 J. A. Riis How Other Half Lives xix. 230 ‘Floaters’ come ashore every now and then with pockets turned inside out. 1963 J. Mitford Amer. Way Death iii. 53 Floaters..are another matter; a person who has been in the Bay for a week or more..will decompose more rapidly. |
| (b) 1897 Westm. Gaz. 30 Mar. 9/2 There are bournes from which no ball, not e'en a floater, returns. 1927 Daily Express 29 Sept. 9 Many leading American professionals ask that the ‘floater’ be adopted as the official standard ball. |
| (c) 1916 ‘Taffrail’ Carry On 54 Almost every day ‘floaters’, which have broken adrift from their moorings, are solemnly sunk by rifle fire. |
| (d) 1921 Chambers's Jrnl. 508/1 The molybdenite-seeker next proceeds to work in earnest by breaking all the loose ‘floaters’ or detached boulders, and collecting all the flakes that are set free in bags. 1928 Sunday Dispatch 25 Nov. 3/5 The chance discovery..of a large ‘floater’, or piece of gold-bearing quartz. 1950 K. S. Prichard Winged Seeds 21 But I reckon the lode these floaters came down from 's not far off. |
| (e) 1933 Punch 25 Oct. 456/1 A ‘floater’ is an old magazine, book ‘or even a newspaper’ which is smuggled irregularly from cell to cell. 1958 F. Norman Bang to Rights 97 It's [sc. a book] a floater so you can sling it if you think you are going to get a turn over. |
b. transitive senses.
| 1783 Useful Projects in Ann. Reg. 95/1, I consulted my meadow floaters. 1868 Yates Rock Ahead ii. iii, Directors of banks, and the ‘floaters’ of ‘concerns’. 1889 Harper's Mag. Feb. 432/2 The ‘floater’ has to wade out in the water..to cut loose with his axe the logs which have stuck fast. |
2. In various technical uses.
a. The floating diaphragm in Papin's steam-engine.
| 1824 R. Stuart Hist. Steam Engine 52 Elevating the piston or floater. |
b. (See
quot.).
| 1857 Nichol Cycl. Phys. Sc., Floater, a contrivance indicating the height of level of a fluid in a vessel, whose depth we cannot at the time directly examine. |
c. = float n. 14.
| 1888 Elworthy W. Somerset Word-bk., Floater, a cart having the axle ‘cranked down’ so that though the wheels are high the body is very near the ground. |
d. Stereotyping.
= floating-plate.
| 1882 Southward Pract. Printing 566 The ‘floater’, a plate of metal fitting on the inside of the ‘dipping pan’. |
3. a. Stock Exchange. A government stock certificate, a railway-bond, etc. accepted as a recognized security.
| 1871 Temple Bar Mag. Feb. 320 Floaters are exchequer bills and similar unfunded stock. 1883 Pall Mall G. 3 May 5/1 The chief use of floaters is..as a means by which banks..can raise money in the general market when they are short of funds..To describe exactly what a floater is..would be a matter of some difficulty. Some..affect to consider that a Government bond to bearer, provided the Government be not in default, may be tendered as a floater; others draw the line at United States bonds. |
b. Insurance. A policy in general terms,
esp. covering portable goods. (
Cf. floating ppl. a. 5 b.)
| 1900 Policy-holder 6 June 441/2 The Norwich Union is largely interested..by specific amounts and by floaters... Messrs. John McNairn and Co. had a {pstlg}20,000 floater from the North British. |
4. orig. U.S. a. A voter who has not attached himself to any political party,
orig. one whose vote may be purchased. In later
U.K. use, without any suggestion of corrupt practice.
| 1847 Knickerbocker XXIX. 329 Early the next morning the ‘floaters’ were marched in single file with votes in hand, to the ballot box. 1883 H. George in N. Amer. Rev. Mar. 203 ‘How many of them floaters?’—i.e. merchantable voters—continued the candidate. ‘Four hundred’ was again the answer. 1888 Pall Mall G. 5 Nov. 7/2 Expressions indicating the intention to buy the Indiana ‘floaters’. 1896 Westm. Gaz. 22 Feb. 5/2 The ‘floaters’ should be mostly credited to Mr. Morley. Many people at Montrose believe he is certain to have a majority of 1,500. 1959 Spectator 25 Sept. 394/1, I find it hard to believe that many floaters were impressed by the Conservatives' first TV broadcast. 1963 Punch 6 Feb. 194/1 A charming Tory supporter..may well sway incalculable numbers of ‘floaters’ when polling day comes. |
b. One who is perpetually changing his place of abode; a vagrant. Also, one who frequently changes his job; a temporary employee.
| 1859 T. S. Woodward Reminisc. (1939) 49 He was a floater..but he located him a tract in the fork of Coosa and Tallapoosa. 1873 J. H. Beadle Undevel. West xxiii. 455 There are clerks, agents..and perhaps fifty ‘floaters’, making up the American population. 1878 ― Western Wilds iii. 45 A man..failed, lost hope, and sank into a ‘floater’. 1883 W. H. Bishop in Harper's Mag. Oct. 718/2 They are irresponsible floaters. 1909 Webster, Floater, one who takes temporary employment; specif., a substitute teacher. U.S. 1923 J. D. Hackett in Managem. Engin. May, Floater, a person who habitually leaves one occupation and goes to another for the sake of variety. 1927 W. T. Root in C. Johnson Negro in Amer. Civ. (1931) 321 The larger number of unmarried ‘floaters’ drifting into the city. 1931 [see float v. 5 d]. 1931 G. Irwin Amer. Tramp & Underworld Slang 76 Floater, a migratory worker, one who moves from place to place, but who has some excuse for this in that he works occasionally. 1934 Sun (Baltimore) 11 Jan. 1/5 He denied that the order marked the establishment of a policy designed to prevent the employment of transient or ‘floater’ labor. 1967 L. Deighton Expensive Place xv. 104 ‘The murdered girl was working for us’..‘A floater?’..‘No. Permanent.’ 1969 Daily Tel. 24 Oct. 16/5 There are only a score of vacancies to be filled, and these are of no interest to a number of young ‘floaters’ in and out of jobs as delivery boys, petrol pump attendants, car washers. 1971 H. C. Rae Marksman ii. vi. 149 [He's a] Detective Inspector; a floater, I think they call it. He circulates from department to department. |
c. In Southern
U.S.: A representative of several counties grouped together, and therefore not directly responsible to any one of them.
| 1853 Texas State Gaz. 16 July (Farmer) A candidate for floater in the district composed of the counties of Fayette, Bastrop, and Travis. |
d. An official order to leave a town or district; a sentence suspended on condition that the offender leaves the area.
U.S. slang.| 1914 Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Slang 34 Floater... A suspended sentence; a mandatory order to quit a community or locality. Example: ‘The rap wasn't strong enough, so they took a floater.’ 1926 J. Black You can't Win vi. 69, I was just after gettin' a six months' floater out of Denver. 1952 J. Steinbeck East of Eden 334 There's a permanent order in the Sheriff's office..that if I..admit I'm your wife I'll get a floater out of the county and out of the state. |
5. A mistake, ‘bloomer’.
slang.| 1913 A. Lunn Harrovians iv. 78 There is no phrase for a faux pas at Harrow... It is only when he reaches the university that he realizes that such banter is often a ‘floater’, and for this handy expression he has no parallel in school slang. 1925 A. Huxley Those Barren Leaves i. i. 8 What she called, in her jovial undergraduatish moments, a ‘floater’. 1929 Wodehouse in H. Cotton Legion Bk. 110 It's just when our intentions are best that we always make the most poisonous floaters. 1938 E. Waugh Scoop i. ii. 33 Have a cigarette or—had he made a floater?—or do you prefer your churchwarden? 1967 A. Wilson No Laughing Matter iii. 312 I've as good as said that we don't want your money... Just the sort of floater I would make, babbling on. |
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▸ A moving spot, thread, etc., which appears in the field of vision, caused by a region of inhomogeneity in the vitreous humour of the eye.
Cf. muscae volitantes
n.| 1902 Lancet 26 Apr. 1176/1 ‘Floaters’ were present in the vitreous humour of each eye. 1964 S. Duke-Elder Parsons' Dis. Eye (ed. 14) 18 257 Degenerative changes also occur in the vitreous which turns fluid with a breakdown of its colloid structure so that dusty opacities or large membrane-like ‘floaters’ are formed. 1986 D. Shields Dead Lang. (1990) xxviii. 223 The moon hung above us like a floater in the eye. 2000 Independent 5 Oct. ii. 9/1 Floaters are caused by tiny clumps or strands of vitreous that cast a shadow on the retina at the back of the eye. |