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Float can be a noun or a verb.

float used as a noun:

  1. A buoyant device used to support something in water or another liquid.
    "Attach the float and the weight to the fishing line, above the hook."
  2. A tool similar to a rasp, used in various trades
  3. A sort of trowel used for finishing concrete surfaces.
    "When pouring a new driveway, you can use a two-by-four as a float."
  4. An elaborately decorated trailer or vehicle, intended for display in a parade or pageant.
    "That float covered in roses is very pretty."
  5. A small battery-powered vehicle used for local deliveries, especially in the term milk float.
  6. Funds committed to be paid but not yet paid.
    "Our bank does a nightly sweep of accounts, to adjust the float so we stay within our reserves limit."
  7. 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.
    "2006, You don't actually need a broker to buy shares in a float when a company is about to be listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. — Australian Securities and Investments Commission financial tips article, Buying shares in a float [http://www.fido.asic.gov.au/fido/fido.nsf/print/Buying+shares+in+a+float?opendocument]"
  8. The total amount of checks/cheques or other drafts written against a bank account but not yet cleared and charged against the account.
    "No sir, your current float is not taken into account, when assets are legally garnished."
  9. Premiums taken in but not yet paid out.
    "We make a lot of interest from our nightly float."
  10. Short form of floating-point number.
    "That routine should not have used an int; it should be a float."
  11. A soft beverage with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream floating in it.
    "It's true - I don't consider anything other than root-beer with vanilla ice-cream to be a "real" float."
  12. A small sum of money put in a cashier's till at the start of business to enable change to be made.

Nouns are naming words. They are used to represent a person (soldier, Jamie), place (Germany, beach), thing (telephone, mirror), quality (hardness, courage), or an action (a run, a punch). Learn more →

float used as a verb:

  1. Of an object or substance, to be supported by a liquid of greater density than the object so as that part of the object or substance remains above the surface.
    "The boat floated on the water."
  2. To be capable of floating.
    "That boat doesn't float."
  3. To drift gently through the air.
    "The balloon floated off into the distance."
  4. To drift or wander aimlessly.
    "I'm not sure where they went... they're floating around here somewhere."
  5. To move in a particular direction with the liquid in which one is floating
    "I'd love to just float downstream."
  6. To move in a fluid manner.
    "The dancer floated gracefully around the stage."
  7. To automatically adjust a parameter as related parameters change.
  8. (of currencies) To have an exchange value determined by the markets as opposed to by rule.
    "The yen floats against the dollar."
  9. (of an idea or scheme) To be viable.
    "That's a daft idea... it'll never float."
  10. To cause something to be suspended in a liquid of greater density; as, to float a boat.
  11. To propose (an idea) for consideration.
    "I floated the idea of free ice-cream on Fridays, but no one was interested."
  12. To extend a short-term loan to.
    "Could you float me $50 until payday?"
  13. To allow (the exchange value of a currency) to be determined by the markets.
    "The government floated the pound in January."
  14. To issue or sell shares in a company (or units in a trust) to members of the public, followed by listing on a stock exchange.
    "2005, He floated the company on the Milan Stock Exchange last December and sold 29 per cent of its shares, mostly to American investors. — article by Dewi Cooke, The Age newspaper, 21 June 2005 (about Mario Moretti Polegato) [http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/shoemaker-strides-for-world-domination/2005/06/20/1119250927926.html?from=moreStories]"
  15. To use a float (tool).
    "It is time to float this horse's teeth."

Verbs are action words and state of being words. Examples of action words are: ran, attacking, dreamed. Examples of "state of being" words are: is, was, be. Learn more →

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What type of word is float?

As detailed above, 'float' can be a noun or a verb. Here are some examples of its usage:
  1. Noun usage: Attach the float and the weight to the fishing line, above the hook.
  2. Noun usage: When pouring a new driveway, you can use a two-by-four as a float.
  3. Noun usage: That float covered in roses is very pretty.
  4. Noun usage: Our bank does a nightly sweep of accounts, to adjust the float so we stay within our reserves limit.
  5. Noun usage: 2006, You don't actually need a broker to buy shares in a float when a company is about to be listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. — Australian Securities and Investments Commission financial tips article, Buying shares in a float [http://www.fido.asic.gov.au/fido/fido.nsf/print/Buying+shares+in+a+float?opendocument]
  6. Noun usage: No sir, your current float is not taken into account, when assets are legally garnished.
  7. Noun usage: We make a lot of interest from our nightly float.
  8. Noun usage: That routine should not have used an int; it should be a float.
  9. Noun usage: It's true - I don't consider anything other than root-beer with vanilla ice-cream to be a "real" float.
  10. Verb usage: The boat floated on the water.
  11. Verb usage: The oil floated on the vinegar.
  12. Verb usage: That boat doesn't float.
  13. Verb usage: Oil floats on vinegar.
  14. Verb usage: The balloon floated off into the distance.
  15. Verb usage: I'm not sure where they went... they're floating around here somewhere.
  16. Verb usage: Images from my childhood floated through my mind.
  17. Verb usage: I'd love to just float downstream.
  18. Verb usage: The dancer floated gracefully around the stage.
  19. Verb usage: The yen floats against the dollar.
  20. Verb usage: That's a daft idea... it'll never float.
  21. Verb usage: I floated the idea of free ice-cream on Fridays, but no one was interested.
  22. Verb usage: Could you float me $50 until payday?
  23. Verb usage: The government floated the pound in January.
  24. Verb usage: Increased pressure on Thailand's currency, the baht, in 1997 led to a crisis that forced the government to float the currency.
  25. Verb usage: 2005, He floated the company on the Milan Stock Exchange last December and sold 29 per cent of its shares, mostly to American investors. — article by Dewi Cooke, The Age newspaper, 21 June 2005 (about Mario Moretti Polegato) [http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/shoemaker-strides-for-world-domination/2005/06/20/1119250927926.html?from=moreStories]
  26. Verb usage: It is time to float this horse's teeth.

Unfortunately, with the current database that runs this site, I don't have data about which senses of float are used most commonly. I've got ideas about how to fix this but will need to find a source of "sense" frequencies. Hopefully there's enough info above to help you understand the part of speech of float, and guess at its most common usage.

Word Type

For those interested in a little info about this site: it's a side project that I developed while working on Describing Words and Related Words. Both of those projects are based around words, but have much grander goals. I had an idea for a website that simply explains the word types of the words that you search for - just like a dictionary, but focussed on the part of speech of the words. And since I already had a lot of the infrastructure in place from the other two sites, I figured it wouldn't be too much more work to get this up and running.

The dictionary is based on the amazing Wiktionary project by wikimedia. I initially started with WordNet, but then realised that it was missing many types of words/lemma (determiners, pronouns, abbreviations, and many more). This caused me to investigate the 1913 edition of Websters Dictionary - which is now in the public domain. However, after a day's work wrangling it into a database I realised that there were far too many errors (especially with the part-of-speech tagging) for it to be viable for Word Type.

Finally, I went back to Wiktionary - which I already knew about, but had been avoiding because it's not properly structured for parsing. That's when I stumbled across the UBY project - an amazing project which needs more recognition. The researchers have parsed the whole of Wiktionary and other sources, and compiled everything into a single unified resource. I simply extracted the Wiktionary entries and threw them into this interface! So it took a little more work than expected, but I'm happy I kept at it after the first couple of blunders.

Special thanks to the contributors of the open-source code that was used in this project: the UBY project (mentioned above), @mongodb and express.js.

Currently, this is based on a version of wiktionary which is a few years old. I plan to update it to a newer version soon and that update should bring in a bunch of new word senses for many words (or more accurately, lemma).

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