Float (pronounced floht)
(1) To
rest, move or remain on the surface of a liquid (to be buoyant; to be supported
by a liquid of greater density, such that part (of the object or substance)
remains above the surface) or in the air.
(2) By
metaphor, to move lightly and gracefully.
(3) By
metaphor, information or items circulating.
(4) Figuratively,
to vacillate (often followed by between).
(5) As
applied to currencies, to be allowed freely to fluctuate in the
foreign-exchange market instead of being exchanged at a fixed or managed rate.
(6) In
the administration of interest rates, periodically to change according to
money-market conditions.
(7) In
the equities markets, the offering of previously privately held stock on public
boards; an offering of shares in a company (or units in a trust) to members of
the public, normally followed by a listing on a stock exchange.
(8) In
the bond markets, an offering.
(9) In
theatre, to lay down (a flat), usually by bracing the bottom edge of the frame
with the foot and allowing the rest to fall slowly to the floor.
(10) An
inflated bag to sustain a person in water; life preserver.
(11) In
plumbing, in certain types of tanks, cisterns etc, a device, as a hollow ball,
that through its buoyancy automatically regulates the level, supply, or outlet
of a liquid.
(12) In
nautical jargon, a floating platform attached to a wharf, bank, or the like,
and used as a landing; any kind of buoyancy device.
(13) In
aeronautics, a hollow, boat-like structure under the wing or fuselage of a
seaplane or flying boat, keeping it afloat in water (aircraft so equipped
sometimes called “float planes”).
(14) In
angling, a piece of cork or other material for supporting a baited line in the
water and indicating by its movements when a fish bites.
(15) In
zoology, an inflated organ that supports an animal in the water; the gas-filled
sac, bag or body of a siphonophore; a pneumatophore.
(16) A
vehicle bearing a display, usually an elaborate tableau, in a parade or
procession.
(17) In
banking, uncollected checks and commercial paper in process of transfer from
bank to bank; funds committed to be paid but not yet charged against the
account.
(18) In
metal-working, a single-cut file (a kind of rasp) of moderate smoothness.
(19) In
interior decorating, a flat tool for spreading and smoothing plaster or stucco.
(20) In
stonemasonry, a tool for polishing marble.
(21) In
weaving and knitting, a length of yarn that extends over several rows or
stitches without being interworked.
(22) In
commerce, a sum of physical cash used to provide change for the till at the
start of a day's business.
(23) In
geology and mining, loose fragments of rock, ore, etc that have been moved from
one place to another by the action of wind, water etc.
(24) To
cause something to be suspended in a liquid of greater density.
(25) To
move in a particular direction with the liquid in which one is floating (as in “floating
downstream” et al).
(26) In
aviation, to remain airborne, without touching down, for an excessive length of
time during landing, due to excessive airspeed during the landing flare.
(27) To
promote an idea for discussion or consideration.
(28) As
expression indicating the viability of an idea (as in “it’ll never float”, conveying
the same sense as “it’ll never fly”).
(29) In
computer (graphics, word processing etc), to cause an element within a document
to “float” above or beside others; on web pages, a visual style in which styled
elements float above or beside others.
(30) In
UK use, a small (often electric) vehicle used for local deliveries, especially
in the term “milk float” (and historically, the now obsolete “coal float”).
(31) In
trade, to allow a price to be determined by the markets as opposed to by rule.
(32) In
insurance, premiums taken in but not yet paid out.
(33) In
computer programming, as floating-point number, a way of representing real
numbers (ie numbers with fractions or decimal points) in a binary format
(34) A
soft beverage with a scoop of ice-cream floating in it.
(35) In
poker, a manoeuvre in which a player calls on the flop or turn with a weak
hand, with the intention of bluffing after a subsequent community card.
(36) In
knitting, one of the loose ends of yarn on an unfinished work.
(37) In
transport, a car carrier or car transporter truck or truck-and-trailer
combination; a lowboy trailer.
(38) In
bartending, the technique of layering of liquid or ingredients on the top of a
drink.
(39) In
electrical engineering, as “float voltage”, an external electric potential
required to keep a battery fully charged
(40) In
zoology, the collective noun for crocodiles (the alternative being “bask”).
(41) In
automotive engineering, as “floating axle”, a type of rear axle used mostly in heavy-duty
vehicles where the axle shafts are not directly attached to the differential
housing or the vehicle chassis but instead supported by bearings housed in the
wheel hubs.
Pre
1000: From the Middle English floten,
from the Old English flotian (to
float), from the Proto-Germanic flutōną
(to float), from the primitive Indo-European plewd- & plew- (to
float, swim, fly). It was cognate with the
Saterland Frisian flotje (to float), the West Frisian flotsje (to float), the Dutch vlotten
(to float), the German flötzen & flößen (to float), the Swedish flotta (to float), the Lithuanian plaukti, the Middle Low German vloten & vlotten (to float, swim), the Middle Dutch vloten, the Old Norse flota,
the Icelandic fljóta, the Old English
flēotan (to float, swim), the Ancient
Greek πλέω (pléō), the Lithuanian plaukti, the Russian пла́вать (plávatʹ) and the Latin plaustrum (wagon, cart). It
was akin to the Old English flēotan
& Old Saxon flotōn (root of
fleet). The meaning “to drift about, passively
to hover" emerged circa 1300 while the transitive sense of “to lift up, to
cause to float (of water etc)” didn’t come into use for another 300-odd years and
the notion of “set (something) afloat” was actually originally figurative (originally
of financial matters) and noted since 1778. Float was long apparently restricted to stuff
in the water and didn’t come into use to refer to things in the air until the 1630s,
this extending to “hover dimly before the eyes” by at least 1775. In medicine, the term “floating rib” was
first used in 1802, so called because the anterior ends are not connected to
the rest. The Proto-Germanic form was flutojanan, from the primitive
Indo-European pleu (to flow) which endures in modern use as pluvial.
Etymologists
have concluded the noun was effectively a merger in the Middle English of three
related Old English nouns: flota (boat,
fleet), flote (troop, flock) & flot (body of water, sea), all from the same
source as the verb. The early senses
were the now-mostly-obsolete ones of the Old English words: the early twelfth
century “state of floating"”, the mid thirteenth century “swimming”, the
slightly later “a fleet of ships; a company or troop” & the early
fourteenth century “stream or river”.
From circa 1300 it has entered the language of fishermen to describe the
attachments used to add buoyancy to fishing lines or nets and some decades
later it meant also “raft”. The meaning “a
platform on wheels used for displays in parades etc” dates from 1888 and
developed either from the manner they percolated down a street on from the
vague resemblance to flat-bottomed boat which had been so described since the
1550s. The type of fountain drink, topped
with a scoop of ice cream was first sold in 1915.
The
noun floater (one who or that which floats) dates from 1717 as was the agent
noun from the verb. From 1847 it was
used in political slang to describe an independent voter (and in those days
with the implication their vote might be “for sale”), something similar to the
modern “swinging voter”. By 1859 it
referred to “one who frequently changes place of residence or employment” and after
1890 was part of US law enforcement slang meaning “dead body found in the water”. The noun flotation dates from 1765, the spelling
influenced by the French flotaison. The adverb afloat was a direct descendent
from the Old English aflote. In idiomatic use, it was the boxer Muhammad
Ali (1942–2016) who made famous the phrase “float like a butterfly; sting like
a bee” and “whatever floats your boat” conveys the idea that individuals should
be free to pursue that which they enjoy without being judged by others. To “float someone’s boat” is to appeal to
them in some way. Float is a noun &
verb, floater is a noun, floated is a verb, floating is a noun, verb &
adjective and floaty is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is floats.
Lindsay
Lohan floating in the Aegean, June 2022.
In the
modern age, currencies began to be floated in the early 1970s after the
collapse of the Bretton Woods system (1944) under which most major currencies
were fixed in relation to the US dollar (which was fixed to gold at a rate of US$35
per ounce). That didn’t mean the
exchange rates were static but the values were set by governments (in processes
called devaluation & revaluation) rather than the spot market and those
movements could be dramatic: In September 1949, the UK (Labour) government devalued
Sterling 30.5% against the US dollar (US$4.03 to 2.80). The Bretton Woods system worked well (certainly
for developed nations like the US, the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand and much of western Europe) in the particular (and historically
unusual) circumstances of the post-war years but by the late 1960s, with the US
government's having effectively printed a vast supply of dollars to finance
expensive programs like the Vietnam War, the nuclear arms build-up, the “Great
Society” and the space programme, and social programs, surplus dollars rapidly
built up in foreign central banks and increasingly these were being shipped
back to the US to be exchanged for physical gold bars. In 1971, the Nixon administration (1969-1974)
responded to the problem of their dwindling gold reserves by suspending the
convertibility, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system and making floating
exchange probably inevitable, the trend beginning when Japan floated the Yen in
1973.
A Bloomberg chart tracking the effect of shifting the US dollar from its link with gold to a fiat currency. Due to this and other factors (notably the oil price), in the 1970s, the bills of the 1960s were paid.
Others
however moved more slowly, many adopting the tactic of the Australian
government which as late as 1983 was still running what was known as a “managed
float”, an arrangement whereby the prime-minister, the treasurer and the head of
the treasury periodically would meet and, using a “a basket of currencies”, set
the value of the Australian dollar against the greenback and the other
currencies (the so-called “cross-rates”).
Now, most major Western nations have floating currencies although there
is sometimes some “management” of the “float” by the mechanism of central banks
intervening by buying or selling. The
capacity for this approach to be significant is however not as influential as once
it was because the numbers in the forex (foreign exchange) markets are huge, dwarfing
the trade in commodities bonds or equities; given the volumes, movements of even
fractions of a cent can mean overnight profits or losses in the millions. Because some "floats" are not exactly "free floats" in which the market operates independently, there remains some suspicion that mechanisms such as "currency pegs" (there are a remarkable variety of pegs) and other methods of fine tuning can mean there are those in dark little corners of the forex world who can benefit from these manipulations. Nobody seem prepared to suggest there's "insider trading" in the conventional sense of the term but there are some traders who appear to be better informed that others.
