Search the Dictionary

Webster’s Dictionary (1828)



114 words match “FLOATING”

FLOATING a. 5 definitions
Buoyed upon or in a fluid; a, the floating timbers of a wreck; floating motes in the air.
FLOATING CHARGE; FLOATING LIEN n.
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.
FLOATINGLY adv.
In a floating manner.
ABJECT a.
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.
ADRIFT adv.
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.
AFLOAT adv.
Borne on the water; floating; on board ship. On such a full sea are we now afloat. Shak.
AIRCRAFT n.
Any device, as a balloon, aëroplane, etc., for floating in, or flying through, the air.
AMBERGRIS n.
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…
BALL n.
-- 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…
BARNACLE n.
Any cirriped crustacean adhering to rocks, floating timber, ships, etc., esp. (a) the sessile species (genus Balanus and allies), and (b) the stalked or goose barnacles (genus Lepas and allies). See Cirripedia, and Goose barnacle. Barnacle eater (Zoöl.), the orange filefish. -- Barnacle scale (Zoöl.), a bark louse (Ce…
BATEAU n.
e Canadian lakes and rivers. [Written also, but less properly, batteau.] Bateau bridge, a floating bridge supported by bateaux.
BEAD PROOF n.
tillers, a certain degree of strength in alcoholic liquor, as formerly ascertained by the floating or sinking of glass globules of different specific gravities thrown into it; now ascertained by more accurate meters.
BOB v.
h the mouth an apple, cherry, or other round fruit, while it is swinging from a string or floating in a tug of water.
BOOM n.
A line of connected floating timbers stretched across a river, or inclosing an area of water, to keep saw logs, etc., from floating away. Boom iron, one of the iron rings on the yards through which the studding-sail booms traverse. -- The booms, that space on the upper deck of a ship between the foremast and mainmast,…
BOWGRACE n.
er of rope or junk, laid out at the sides or bows of a vessel to secure it from injury by floating ice.
BRIDGE n.
ever. -- Draw bridge. See Drawbridge. -- Flying bridge, a temporary bridge suspended or floating, as for the passage of armies; also, a floating structure connected by a cable with an anchor or pier up stream, and made to pass from bank to bank by the action of the current or other means. -- Girder bridge or Truss b…
BUBBLE n.
A small, hollow, floating bead or globe, formerly used for testing the strength of spirits.
BULWARK n.
e or protection. The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defense, . . . the floating bulwark of our island. Blackstone.
BUOY n. 2 definitions
A float; esp. a floating object moored to the bottom, to mark a channel or to point out the position of something beneath the water, as an anchor, shoal, rock, etc. Anchor buoy, a buoy attached to, or marking the position of, an anchor. -- Bell buoy, a large buoy on which a bell is mounted, to be rung by the motion of…
BUOYANCY n. 2 definitions
The property of floating on the surface of a liquid, or in a fluid, as in the atmosphere; specific lightness, which is inversely as the weight compared with that of an equal volume of water.
← Previous Page 1 of 6 Next →