Floating

How to spell floating

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce floating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does floating mean?

1. adjectiveResting or drifting on the surface of a liquid rather than sinking.
2. adjectiveFree to vary rather than being fixed, especially of a rate, currency, or debt.

Floating in a sentence

• A floating log drifted slowly toward the riverbank.

• The mortgage carries a floating interest rate that changes with the market.

• Children chased the floating ball across the swimming pool.

• The central bank allowed the currency to remain floating against the dollar.

Where does floating come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base verb 'float' descends from the Old English flotian, meaning 'to rest on the surface of water' or 'to drift', and it belongs to the same Germanic family as the words 'fleet' and 'flow', all linked by the underlying idea of moving freely with water. Related forms appear across the old Germanic languages, such as the Old Norse flota, which also meant to float or launch a vessel. The present participle 'floating' was formed in the natural English way by adding the ending -ing, and from the literal sense of a body lying on water the word stretched into figurative uses, such as a 'floating' population that drifts from place to place or a 'floating' interest rate that is free to move rather than fixed. Because the spelling simply joins a familiar everyday verb to a familiar ending, it holds few traps; the one point to watch is keeping the long 'oa' vowel of float intact and not doubling the final t before -ing.

How the word is built

• float (to rest or move on a liquid surface)
• -ing (forming present participle and adjective)