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Anything which floats or rests on the surface of a fluid, as to sustain weight, or to indicate the height of the surface, or mark the place of, something. Specifically:

That may be floated.

Same as Flotage.

See Flotation.

One who floats or swims.

Buoyed upon or in a fluid; a, the floating timbers of a wreck; floating motes in the air.

A charge, lien, etc., that successively attaches to such assets as a person may have from time to time, leaving him more or less free to dispose of or encumber them as if no such charge or lien existed.

In a floating manner.

Swimming on the surface; buoyant; light. Sir W. Raleigh.

Borne on the water; floating; on board ship. On such a full sea are we now afloat. Shak.

To overflow. [R.] Dryden.

Reflux; ebb. [Obs.] Bacon.

Cast down; low-lying. [Obs.] From the safe shore their floating carcasses And broken chariot wheels; so thick bestrown Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood. Milton.

Floating at random; in a drifting condition; at the mercy of wind and waves. Also fig. So on the sea shall be set adrift. Dryden. Were from their daily labor turned adrift. Wordsworth.

A flying machine, or a small plane for experiments on flying, which floats in the air only when propelled through it.

Any device, as a balloon, aëroplane, etc., for floating in, or flying through, the air.

A substance of the consistence of wax, found floating in the Indian Ocean and other parts of the tropics, and also as a morbid secretion in the intestines of the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), which is believed to be in all cases its true origin. In color it is white, ash-gray, yellow, or black, and often varieg…

shore; to the land; aground (when applied to a ship); -- sometimes opposed to aboard or afloat. Here shall I die ashore. Shak. I must fetch his necessaries ashore. Shak.

A board attached to the rim of a water wheel to prevent the water from running off the floats or paddies into the interior of the wheel. W. Nicholson.

-- Ball cock, a faucet or valve which is opened or closed by the fall or rise of a ball floating in water at the end of a lever. -- Ball gudgeon, a pivot of a spherical form, which permits lateral deflection of the arbor or shaft, while retaining the pivot in its socket. Knight. -- Ball lever, the lever used in a b…