floating

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• adjective Buoyed on or suspended in or as if in a fluid.
• adjective Not secured in place; unattached.
• adjective Inclined to move or be moved about.
• adjective Permitted to rise or fall in response to the market.
• adjective Having an exchange rate or interest rate that rises or falls in response to the market.
• adjective Being short-term debt that is continuously refinanced.
• adjective Economics Available for use; in circulation. Used of capital.
• adjective Designed or constructed to operate smoothly and without vibration.
• adjective Of or relating to an organ of the body that is movable or out of normal position.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The process of fattening oysters and scallops by placing them in fresh or brackish water, thus causing the tissues to become distended. See float, n., 1 , and float, v. t., 3. Also known as fattening, laying out, and plumping.
• Borne on the surface of the water or other liquid, or on the air: as, a floating leaf; floating islands.
• Not fixed or settled in a definite state or place; fluctuating: as, floating population.
• Free; disconnected; unattached: as, the floating ribs in some fishes.
• In finance: Composed of sums of varying amount due at different but specified dates; unfunded: as, a large floating debt.
• Not fixed or definitely invested; not appropriated to any fixed permanent investment, as in lands, buildings, machinery, etc., but ready to be used as occasion demands; in circulation or use: as, floating capital (opposed to fixed capital). See capital.
• noun The act of supporting one's self, or the state of being supported or borne, on the surface of water or other liquid; flotation.
• noun In agriculture, the flooding or overflowing of meadow-lands.
• noun The spreading of stucco or plaster on the surface of walls, etc.; also, the second coat of three-coat plastering-work.
• noun A method of obtaining pigments and other materials in a very finely divided state.
• noun In electrotyping, the process of filling lowspaced forms of type with liquid plaster up to the shoulders of the type, and brushing off the superfluous plaster after it is dry, preparatory to taking a mold.
• noun In weaving, a thread of weft which floats, spans, or crosses on the top of several warped threads. See flushing, 1.
• noun The method or practice of hunting game by approaching it with a boat at night; fire-hunting; shining; jacking.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Weaving) Floating threads. See Floating threads, above.
• noun The second coat of three-coat plastering.
• noun The process of rendering oysters and scallops plump by placing them in fresh or brackish water; -- called also fattening, plumping, and laying out.
• adjective Buoyed upon or in a fluid; a, the floating timbers of a wreck; floating motes in the air.
• adjective Free or lose from the usual attachment.
• adjective Not funded; not fixed, invested, or determined
• adjective (Naut.) a drag or sea anchor; drag sail.
• adjective (Mil.) a battery erected on rafts or the hulls of ships, chiefly for the defense of a coast or the bombardment of a place.
• adjective (Mil.) The landing platform of a ferry dock.
• adjective (Med.) a cartilage which moves freely in the cavity of a joint, and often interferes with the functions of the latter.
• adjective A caisson used as a gate for a dry dock.
• adjective a derrick on a float for river and harbor use, in raising vessels, moving stone for harbor improvements, etc.
• adjective (Naut.) See under Dock.
• adjective a breakwater of cages or booms, anchored and fastened together, and used as a protection to ships riding at anchor to leeward.
• adjective (Bot.) a small aquatic plant (Limnanthemum lacunosum) whose heart-shaped leaves float on the water of American ponds.
• adjective a dish for dessert, consisting of custard with floating masses of whipped cream or white of eggs.
• adjective (Med.) See Wandering kidney, under Wandering.
• adjective a light shown at the masthead of a vessel moored over sunken rocks, shoals, etc., to warn mariners of danger; a light-ship; also, a light erected on a buoy or floating stage.
• adjective (Med.) See Wandering liver, under Wandering.
• adjective a landing stage or pier which rises and falls with the tide.
• adjective (Anat.) the lower or posterior ribs which are not connected with the others in front; in man they are the last two pairs.
• adjective (Plastering) a strip of plastering first laid on, to serve as a guide for the thickness of the coat.
• adjective (Weaving) threads which span several other threads without being interwoven with them, in a woven fabric.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• adjective That which floats or float.
• adjective Not fixed in position, opinion etc.; free to move or drift.
• adjective linguistics that is not attached to any consonant or vowel within its morpheme.
• verb Present participle of float.