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Contents
floor definition
Overview
This page has 26 definitions of floor in English and Middle English. Floor is a noun and verb. Examples of how to use floor in a sentence are shown. Also define these 0 related words and terms: .
English floor definition
Etymology
From Middle English flor, flore, from Old English flōr (“floor, pavement, ground, bottom”), from Proto-Germanic *flōrō, *flōrô, *flōraz (“flat surface, floor, plain”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂ros (“floor”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂- (“flat”).
Cognate with West Frisian flier (“floor”), Dutch vloer (“floor”), German Flur (“field, floor, entrance hall”), Swedish flor (“floor of a cow stall”), Irish urlár (“floor”), Scottish Gaelic làr (“floor, ground, earth”), Welsh llawr (“floor, ground”), Latin plānus (“level, flat”).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: flô, IPA(key): /flɔː/
- (General American) enPR: flôr, IPA(key): /flɔɹ/
- (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) enPR: flōr, IPA(key): /flo(ː)ɹ/
- (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA(key): /floə/
Audio (UK) (file) Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)
- Homophone: flaw (in non-rhotic accents with the horse–hoarse merger)
- Homophones: flow, floe (non-rhotic with dough-door merger (AAVE, non-rhotic Southern accents))
Noun
floor (plural floors)
- The interior bottom or surface of a house or building; the supporting surface of a room.
- The room has a wooden floor.
- 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], OCLC 2666860, page 0016:
- A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.
- Ground (surface of the Earth, as opposed to the sky or water or underground).
- The lower inside surface of a hollow space.
- Many sunken ships rest on the ocean floor.
- The floor of a cave served the refugees as a home.
- The pit floor showed where a ring of post holes had been.
- A structure formed of beams, girders, etc, with proper covering, which divides a building horizontally into storeys/stories.
- The supporting surface or platform of a structure such as a bridge.
- Wooden planks of the old bridge's floor were nearly rotten.
- A storey/story of a building.
- For years we lived on the third floor.
- 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 19, in The China Governess[1]:
- When Timothy and Julia hurried up the staircase to the bedroom floor, where a considerable commotion was taking place, Tim took Barry Leach with him. He had him gripped firmly by the arm, since he felt it was not safe to let him loose, and he had no immediate idea what to do with him.
- In a parliament, the part of the house assigned to the members, as opposed to the viewing gallery.
- Hence, the right to speak at a given time during a debate or other public event.
- Will the senator from Arizona yield the floor?
- The mayor often gives a lobbyist the floor.
- (nautical) That part of the bottom of a vessel on each side of the keelson which is most nearly horizontal.
- (mining) A horizontal, flat ore body; the rock underlying a stratified or nearly horizontal deposit.
- (mining) The bottom of a pit, pothole or mine[1].
- (mathematics) The largest integer less than or equal to a given number.
- The floor of 4.5 is 4.
- (gymnastics) An event performed on a floor-like carpeted surface; floor exercise
- (gymnastics) A floor-like carpeted surface for performing gymnastic movements.
- (finance) A lower limit on the interest rate payable on an otherwise variable-rate loan, used by lenders to defend against falls in interest rates. Opposite of a cap.
- A dance floor.
- 1983, "Maniac", Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky:
- She's a maniac, maniac on the floor / And she's dancing like she never danced before
- 1987, "Walk the Dinosaur", Was (Not Was):
- Open the door, get on the floor / Everybody walk the dinosaur
- 1983, "Maniac", Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky:
- The trading floor of a stock exchange, pit; the area in which business is conducted at a convention or exhibition.
Synonyms
- (bottom part of a room): see Thesaurus:floor
- (right to speak): possession (UK)
Antonyms
Derived terms
- back to the floor
- dance floor
- first floor
- floorboard
- floor cloth
- floor cramp
- floorer
- floor exercise
- floor heating
- floor lamp
- floor light
- floor manager
- floor plan
- floorset
- floor show, floorshow
- floorspace, floor space
- floor-walker
- floorward
- ground floor
- low-floor
- mezzanine floor
- mop the floor with someone
- ocean floor
- seafloor
- second floor
- shop floor
- subfloor
- take the floor
- thirteenth floor
- top floor
- trading floor
- underfloor
- valley floor
- walk the floor
Related terms
Translations
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Verb
floor (third-person singular simple present floors, present participle flooring, simple past and past participle floored)
- (transitive) To cover or furnish with a floor.
- floor a house with pine boards
- 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess[2]:
- To strike down or lay level with the floor; to knock down.
- (informal, dated) To hang (a picture on exhibition) near the base of a wall, where it cannot easily be seen.
- Antonym: sky
- (driving, transitive, slang) To push (a pedal) down to the floor, especially to accelerate.
- our driver floored the pedal
- (informal, transitive) To silence by a conclusive answer or retort.
- floor an opponent
- c. 1827-1833, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes on Hacket:
- Floored or crushed by him.
- (informal, transitive) To amaze or greatly surprise.
- We were floored by his confession.
- 2021 June 3, Katherine Eban, “The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins”, in Vanity Fair[3]:
- Some of the attendees were “absolutely floored,” said an official familiar with the proceedings. That someone in the U.S. government could “make an argument that is so nakedly against transparency, in light of the unfolding catastrophe, was…shocking and disturbing.”
- (colloquial, transitive) To finish or make an end of.
- 1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], Tom Brown at Oxford: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, OCLC 2753050:
- I've floored my little-go work
- floor a college examination
- (mathematics) To set a lower bound.
- floored division
Translations
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Further reading
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Floor (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia -
Floor in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
References
- ^ 1881, Rossiter W. Raymond, A Glossary of Mining and Metallurgical Terms
Anagrams
Middle English floor definition
Noun
floor
- Alternative form of flor