Part 211

Float"ing, a. 1. Buoyed upon or in a fluid; a, the floating timbers of a wreck; floating motes in the air.

2. Free or lose from the usual attachment; as, the floating ribs in man and some other animals.

3. Not funded; not fixed, invested, or determined; as, floating capital; a floating debt.

Trade was at an end. Floating capital had been withdrawn in great masses from the island.

Macaulay.

Floating anchor (Naut.), a drag or sea anchor; drag sail. -- Floating battery (Mil.), a battery erected on rafts or the hulls of ships, chiefly for the defense of a coast or the bombardment of a place. -- Floating bridge. (a) A bridge consisting of rafts or timber, with a floor of plank, supported wholly by the water; a bateau bridge. See Bateau. (b) (Mil.) A kind of double bridge, the upper one projecting beyond the lower one, and capable of being moved forward by pulleys; -- used for carrying troops over narrow moats in attacking the outworks of a fort. (c) A kind of ferryboat which is guided and impelled by means of chains which are anchored on each side of a stream, and pass over wheels on the vessel, the wheels being driven by stream power. (d) The landing platform of a ferry dock. -- Floating cartilage (Med.), a cartilage which moves freely in the cavity of a joint, and often interferes with the functions of the latter. -- Floating dam. (a) An anchored dam. (b) A caisson used as a gate for a dry dock. -- Floating derrick, a derrick on a float for river and harbor use, in raising vessels, moving stone for harbor improvements, etc. -- Floating dock. (Naut.) See under Dock. -- Floating harbor, a breakwater of cages or booms, anchored and fastened together, and used as a protection to ships riding at anchor to leeward. Knight. -- Floating heart (Bot.), a small aquatic plant (Limnanthemum lacunosum) whose heart-shaped leaves float on the water of American ponds. -- Floating island, a dish for dessert, consisting of custard with floating masses of whipped cream or white of eggs. -- Floating kidney. (Med.) See Wandering kidney, under Wandering. -- Floating light, 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. -- Floating liver. (Med.) See Wandering liver, under Wandering. -- Floating pier, a landing stage or pier which rises and falls with the tide. -- Floating ribs (Anat.), the lower or posterior ribs which are not connected with the others in front; in man they are the last two pairs. -- Floating screed (Plastering), a strip of plastering first laid on, to serve as a guide for the thickness of the coat. -- Floating threads (Weaving), threads which span several other threads without being interwoven with them, in a woven fabric.

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Float"ing (?), n. 1. (Weaving) Floating threads. See Floating threads, above.

2. The second coat of three-coat plastering. Knight.

Float"ing*ly, adv. In a floating manner.

Float"y (?), a. Swimming on the surface; buoyant; light. Sir W. Raleigh.

Flo"bert (?), n. (Gun.) A small cartridge designed for target shooting; -- sometimes called ball cap.

Flobert rifle, a rifle adapted to the use of floberts.

Floc`cil*la"tion (?), n. [L. floccus a flock of wool. Cf. Flock of wool.] (Med.) A delirious picking of bedclothes by a sick person, as if to pick off flocks of wool; carphology; -- an alarming symptom in acute diseases. Dunglison.

Floc*cose" (?), a. [L. floccosus. Cf. 2d Flock, n.] 1. Spotted with small tufts like wool. Wright.

2. (Bot.) Having tufts of soft hairs, which are often deciduous.

Floc"cu*lar (?), a. (Anat.) Of or pertaining to the flocculus.

Floc"cu*late (?), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Flocculated; p. pr. & vb. n. Flocculating.] (Geol.) To aggregate into small lumps.

Floc"cu*late (?), a. (Zoˆl.) Furnished with tufts of curly hairs, as some insects.

Floc`cu*la"tion (?), n. (Geol.) The process by which small particles of fine soils and sediments aggregate into larger lumps.

Floc"cu*lence (?), n. The state of being flocculent.

Floc"cu*lent (?), a. [See Flock of wool.] 1. Clothed with small flocks or flakes; woolly. Gray.

2. (Zoˆl.) Applied to the down of newly hatched or unfledged birds.

||Floc"cu*lus (?), n.; pl. Flocculi (#). [NL., dim. of L. floccus a ||lock or flock of wool.] (Anat.) A small lobe in the under surface of ||the cerebellum, near the middle peduncle; the subpeduncular lobe.

||Floc"cus (?), n.; pl. Flocci (#). [L., a flock of wool.] 1. (Zoˆl.) ||(a) The tuft of hair terminating the tail of mammals. (b) A tuft of ||feathers on the head of young birds.

2. (Bot.) A woolly filament sometimes occuring with the sporules of certain fungi.

Flock (?), n. [AS. flocc flock, company; akin to Icel. flokkr crowd, Sw. flock, Dan. flok; prob. orig. used of flows, and akin to E. fly. See Fly.] 1. A company or collection of living creatures; -- especially applied to sheep and birds, rarely to persons or (except in the plural) to cattle and other large animals; as, a flock of ravenous fowl. Milton.

The heathen . . . came to Nicanor by flocks.