Definition of "floater"

One who or that which floats in a liquid or gas.

1. A small suet dumpling put into soup  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • About an hour later a ration lorry found them, and the men were woken again, this time to a good meal of bully stew and floaters – suet dumplings – followed by cold rice pudding with jam.

     2011, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, The Fallen Kings

2. (Australia) A pie floater.  examples

3. (police jargon) A corpse floating in a body of water.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • A dock worker saw him floating against a dock pier and called the police. Condition of the body they thought a floater that had been hit by a boat and cut by the prop.

     2017, E. J. Stauffer, The Drowning

4. (vulgar) A piece of faeces that floats.  examples

5. (basketball) Early layup taken by a player moving towards the rim where, upon release, the ball floats in the air over the top of a defender before dropping softly into the hoop.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • The floater is a high arcing shot that is commonly used to get the ball over taller defenders in the paint.

     2014, Tarrence Garrison, Basketball Essentials

   • 'Floaters' [i.e. unofficially circulated books] had also come into the prison: you could either find them in the library, or they would be given […]

     1991, Michael Tippett, Those twentieth century blues: an autobiography, page 143

   • His books were 'floaters', banned by the borstal, but copies were smuggled in and from wing to wing.

     2000, Julian Broadhead, Laura Kerr, Prison Writing: A Collection of Fact, Fiction and Verse, page 9

A person without a lasting affiliation, role, or position normally expected.

1. An employee of a company who does not have fixed tasks to do but fills in wherever needed, usually when someone else is away.  examples

2. (sports) A player not affiliated with a team.  examples

3. (politics) A voter who shifts from party to party, especially one whose vote can be purchased.  examples

4. (politics, US) A person, such as a delegate to a convention or a member of a legislature, who represents an irregular constituency, such as one formed by a union of the voters of two counties neither of which has a number sufficient to be allowed a (or an extra) representative of its own.  examples

5. (US, politics) One who votes illegally in various polling places or election districts, either under false registration made by himself or under the name of some properly registered person who has not already voted.  examples

6. An "extra" male at a dinner party, or a young friend of the hostess, whose assignment is to entertain the female guests.  examples

7. (slang, by extension) Someone who attaches themselves to a group of people, much to the dismay of that group, and repeatedly shows up to participate in group activities despite attempts to get rid of, or “flush,” said individual.

(ophthalmology) A threadlike speck in the visual field that seems to move, possibly caused by degeneration of the vitreous humour.

(insurance) A policy covering property at more than one location or which may be in transit.  examples

(finance) A floating rate bond.  examples

(surfing) A maneuver in which a surfer transitions above the unbroken face of the wave onto the lip, or on top of the breaking section of the wave.  examples

(two-up) A coin which does not spin when thrown in the air.  quotations  examples

(prison slang) A book circulated between prisoners that is not part of the official prison library.

(India) A waterproof sandal.  quotations  examples

A river mussel of genus Anodonta.  examples

(slang) A misstep; a faux pas.  quotations