floating

English

Etymology

By surface analysis, float +‎ -ing.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfloʊtɪŋ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfləʊtɪŋ/
• Rhymes: -əʊtɪŋ

Adjective

floating (not comparable)

1. That floats or float.

   floating buoys

2. Not fixed in position, opinion etc.; free to move or drift.

   The outcome of the forthcoming election is still unclear due to the large number of floating voters.

   In China, the large floating population has tended to gravitate to cities.

   You can drag the floating toolbars to any position on the screen.

   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIV, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 198:

     "And I am much mistaken if she has not some floating fancy of her own."

3. (linguistics, phonology, of a tone, or by extension any segment or feature) Present in the underlying phonological representation but not linked to an anchor on which it can surface.
   • 1974, Larry M. Hyman, Russell G. Schuh, “Universals of Tone Rules: Evidence from West Africa”, in Linguistic Inquiry, volume 5, number 1, →JSTOR, page 86:

     Historically, there was an accompanying vowel, but synchronically, a mere "floating" high tone is posited. In stage (b) this high tone causes the preceding low tone to raise to a raised-low tone via the process of low-raising. Finally, in stage (c) the floating high tone is lost.

   • 2009 October, Eun-Sook Kim, Douglas Pulleyblank, “Glottalization and Lenition in Nuu-chah-nulth”, in Linguistic Inquiry‎^[1], volume 40, number 4, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 567-617:

     Two classes of suffixes beginning with [+constricted glottis] ([+c.g.]) must be distinguished: those that invariably begin with a glottal stop and those that induce the glottalization of a preceding segment. Following Kim (2003), we attribute the difference to whether the suffix begins with a full glottal stop or a floating glottal “subsegment” (Zoll 1996). The essence of the distinction is that the full glottal stops consist underlyingly of a root node linked to a [+c.g.] feature while the subsegments consist solely of a [+c.g.] specification.

Derived terms

• flixel
• floating academy
• floating beacon
• floating bog
• floating bridge
• floating bus stop
• floating car data
• floating cellular data
• floating collar
• floating dock
• floating feeling
• floating garden
• floating gold
• floating ground
• floating heart
• floating island
• floating kidney
• floating light
• floatingly
• floating market
• floating panel
• floating point, floating-point
• floating-point number
• floating-point operation
• floating point operation
• floating point processor
• floating-point unit
• floating rate
• floating rib
• floating screed
• floating signifier
• floating tone
• floating vote
• floating voter
• floating wind turbine
• floating wood tile
• free-floating planet
• nonfloating
• unfloating

Translations

that floats

• Ainu: アモㇺカ (amomka)
• Belarusian: плыву́чы (plyvúčy), наплаўны́ (naplawný) (kept afloat)
• Bulgarian: плаващ (bg) (plavašt)
• Catalan: flotant (ca), surant
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 漂浮的 (zh) (piāofúde)

• Finnish: kelluva (fi)
• Greek:

  Ancient Greek: πλωτός (plōtós)

• Romanian: plutitor (ro), flotant (ro)
• Russian: плаву́чий (ru) (plavúčij), наплавно́й (ru) (naplavnój) (kept afloat)
• Spanish: flotante (es), flotador (es)
• Ukrainian: плаву́чий (plavúčyj), наплавни́й (naplavnýj) (kept afloat)

not fixed

• Bulgarian: променлив (bg) (promenliv)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 浮動的 / 浮动的 (zh) (fúdòngde)

• Finnish: liikkuva (fi)
• Māori: māngina (of an opinion, undecided), mōngina (of an opinion, undecided)
• Romanian: flotant (ro)

Verb

floating

1. present participle and gerund of float

Noun

floating (plural floatings)

1. The motion of something that floats.
2. (in the plural) Material that floats in a liquid.
   • 1898, Journal of Microscopy, page 256:

     Plastic mud, brownish tinted, rich in floatings.

3. The spreading of plaster on the surface of walls.
4. (veterinary medicine) A veterinary dental procedure involving the filing down of sharp surfaces on a horse's teeth.

Translations

the motion of something that floats — see flotation

Anagrams

• antigolf