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Float   /floʊt/   Listen
Float

noun
1.
The time interval between the deposit of a check in a bank and its payment.
2.
The number of shares outstanding and available for trading by the public.
3.
A drink with ice cream floating in it.  Synonyms: ice-cream float, ice-cream soda.
4.
An elaborate display mounted on a platform carried by a truck (or pulled by a truck) in a procession or parade.
5.
A hand tool with a flat face used for smoothing and finishing the surface of plaster or cement or stucco.  Synonym: plasterer's float.
6.
Something that floats on the surface of water.
7.
An air-filled sac near the spinal column in many fishes that helps maintain buoyancy.  Synonyms: air bladder, swim bladder.



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"Float" Quotes from Famous Books



... maneuvers. Space maneuvers," said Dixon. "A glass case, a seven-foot cube, is divided by light shafts into smaller cubes of equal shape and size. Each man has a complete space squadron. Three model rocket cruisers, six destroyers and ten scouts. The ships are filled with gas to make them float, and your power is derived from magnetic force. The problem is to get a combination of cruisers and destroyers and scouts into a space section where it could knock out ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell

... the waves! The storm had burst upon us in all its violence; our masts seemed to reach up to the clouds, and then to plunge into the abyss. A terrible shock told us that the ship had touched the bottom. We then cut away the cordage and masts to lighten her and try to float her again; this came to pass, but the force of the waves turned her over on her side....As the ship was already leaking in every part, the passengers all rushed on deck; and some...threw themselves into the sea and perished....The passengers and crew had lashed themselves to the shrouds and ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... being to escape the outrages and ill-treatment of a merciless and cruel soldiery. It was decided to reach Canada the best way we could, after which, after crossing the great northern lakes, our journey was to be overland to the Mississippi river, on whose waters we would float down to Louisiana, a French colony inhabited by people of our own race, and professing the same ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies

... regiment or other military organization, or of alien nations,—it should be placed, or carried, or crossed, at the right of the other flag or flags. When portrayed in illustrations by any process or for any purpose, it is so pictured that the staff will always be at the left and the fabric will float to the right. ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway

... humid clouds of spring float over the enamelled meads, And, like my eyes, dissolve in tears. My fancy seeks thee in all places; and the beauties Of Nature retrace, at every moment, Thy enchanting image. But thou, O cruel fair one! Thou endeavourest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various

... blended with the lions of St. Mark. The triumphal procession, ascending the great canal, passed under the bridge of the Rialto; and the Eastern strangers gazed with admiration on the palaces, the churches, and the populousness of a city, that seems to float on the bosom of the waves. [55] They sighed to behold the spoils and trophies with which it had been decorated after the sack of Constantinople. After a hospitable entertainment of fifteen days, Palaeologus ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... disappointment than a prize unattained. Like a jelly-fish in the water, as long as it is there its tenuous substance is lovely, expanded, tinged with delicate violets and blues, and its long filaments float in lines of beauty. Lay it on the beach, and it is a shapeless lump, and it poisons and stings. You fish your prize out of the great ocean, and when you have it, does it disappoint, or does it fulfil, the raised expectations ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... State Championship this season, Coach!" declared Butch, banging the table emphatically, as he stated a self-evident fact. "It's my last year for Old Bannister, and so with Beef and Pudge. I'll give every ounce of strength I possess In every game, to make that pennant float over Bannister Field!" ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... come late in the season for pickles. Cut small green cucumbers from vine, leaving a half-inch of stem. Scrub with vegetable brush, place in a bowl and pour over a brine almost strong enough to float an egg; 3/4 cup of salt to seven cups of cold water is about the right proportion. Allow them to stand over night in this brine. Drain off salt water in the morning. Heat a small quantity of the salt water and pour over small onions which have been "skinned." Use ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... by very firm ligaments to the bones of the head, and being a weighty affair, would easily be knocked off, or might drop away from the body as it floated in water in a state of decomposition. The jaw would thus be deposited immediately, while the rest of the body would float and drift away altogether, ultimately reaching the sea, and perhaps becoming destroyed. The jaw becomes covered up and preserved in the river silt, and thus it comes that we have such a curious ...
— The Past Condition of Organic Nature • Thomas H. Huxley

... adjustments was a sort of amusement that might have gratified her activity and enjoyment of imaginary rule; the weather was fine, and they were coasting southward, where even the rain-furrowed, heat-cracked clay becomes gem-like with purple shadows, and where one may float between blue and blue in an open-eyed dream that the world has ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... his devotion to the art of painting. Indeed, from that time forth, he would spend the best part of the day in the front balcony, like the attentive angler poring on his float; and the better to support the tedium, he would frequently console himself with his clay pipe. On several occasions, passers-by appeared to be arrested by the ticket, and on several others ladies and gentlemen drove to the very doorstep by the carriageful; but it appeared ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... on the morning of September 14th. Scores of neutral flags float from the windows on the Calle de Plateros, and in their shade beautiful women gaze curiously on the scene beneath. Gayly dressed groups throng the balconies, and at the street-corners dark-faced men scowl, mutter deep curses, and clutch their knives. The street resounds with the heavy tramp ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... 'twas a trumpet's note! And I see my brethren's lances gleam, And their pennons wave by the mountain stream, And their plumes to the glad wind float. Cease awhile, clarion! clarion, wild and shrill! Cease, let them hear the captive's voice! ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... handkerchief, and started out. Ma told him not to drink anything, and he said he wouldn't, but he did. He was full the third place he went to. O, so full. Some men can get full and not show it, but when Pa gets full, he gets so full his back teeth float, and the liquor crowds his eyes out, and his mouth gets loose and wiggles all over his face, and he laughs all the time, and the perspiration just oozes out of him, and his face gets red, and he walks so wide. O, he disgraced us all. At one place he wished the hired girl a happy new ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck

... pint out to me which is the least valooable, an' at the same time heaviest part of it, I'll send the mate and four men to git it on deck. But to tell you the truth even if we do git her off I don't think she'll float. She's an oldish craft, not fit to have her bottom rasped on coral ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... the shade of a dreamy consciousness than through the understanding. May I give you an illustration? We stand upon a low plain and gaze upon a far-off range of hills, from the sides of which thick clouds of white mist are hanging. Gradually, as the sun rises higher in the heavens, they float away, and we begin dimly to see through a clearer atmosphere the yellow corn waving on the brown hillside, the smoke rising from the lonely farmhouse, and, if we have patience and wait still, by-and-by we can even distinguish ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... "when she is working automatically neither the periscope nor the wireless-mast shows. The wireless impulses are carried down to her from an inconspicuous float which trails along the surface and carries a short aerial with a wire running down, like a mast, ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... annex themselves, in sheer weariness at our imbecility, to the Americans, who, far too wise to throw them away in their turn, will accept them gladly as an instalment of that great development of their empire, when 'The stars and stripes shall float ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... that we commence our journal with politics the mildest? Though revolutions are not made with rose-water, it is rose-water that nourishes their roots. The polite cynicism of authors, read by those who float on the surface of society, prepares the way for the social ferment in its deeps. Had there been no Voltaire, there would have been no Camille Desmoulins; had there been no Diderot, there would have been no Marat. We start as polite cynics. Of all cynics Savarin ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... can, single-handed, remedy the defects. The destinies of Russia are, as it were, a stranded vessel which the captain and crew cannot move, and which nothing, indeed, but the rising tide of the national life can raise and float." ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... ventured in at the west end where a firmer lip of sand and alkali gave us footing. And I enjoyed the swim, although Dinky-Dunk made fun of my improvised bathing-suit. It seemed like old times, to bask lazily in the sun and float about on my back with my fingers linked under my head. My lord and master even acknowledged that my figure wasn't so bad as he had expected, in a lady of my years. I splashed him for that, and he dove for my ankles, and nearly drowned me before I ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... it seems, there is a palace like a palace in Fairyland, a palace of white marble, all stately colonnades and terraces, yet looking, somehow, as light as if it were built of the sea's foam. This is one of the palaces—the summer palace—of the Counts of Sampaolo. It seems to float on the water, but it really occupies a tiny mite of an islet, called Isola Nobile; and connected with Isola Nobile by marble bridges are two other tiny Islets, laid out in gardens, Isola Fratello and Isola Sorella. The Counts of Sampaolo ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... their little farms, and raise pigs, chickens, vegetables, etc., if they wish. They may, and do, float about over the waters of the neighbouring bay in boats or on rafts, and fish to their hearts' content. They are well fed and well cared for, and their physical condition improves to a marked degree promptly after their arrival at the colony. The only hardship ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... to dig for some worms for bait, and to cut a rod. When he brought it back, Mr Maclean fastened a line with a float and a hook ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston

... got thus close to it that the strangeness of this object was at all evident to me. At the first glance it was really no more exciting than an overturned carriage or a tree blown across the road. Not so much so, indeed. It looked like a rusty gas float. It required a certain amount of scientific education to perceive that the grey scale of the Thing was no common oxide, that the yellowish-white metal that gleamed in the crack between the lid and the cylinder had an unfamiliar hue. "Extra-terrestrial" ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... An alarm operated by a change of water level in a tank or boiler. By a float a contact is made as it rises with the water. Another float may be arranged to fall and close a contact as the level falls. The closing of the contacts rings an electric bell to notify the attendant ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... course. After thinking over different colors, and trying them upon her in my mind, I decided that her gown should be of a delicate pink, and should be made of some frail, beautiful material which would float about her like gossamer when she moved, and shimmer like the light of dawn upon the dew. You know the sort of gown I mean: one of those gowns upon which a man is afraid to lay his finger-tips lest the material melt ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... be told what the object was in launching the gig. Fortunately there had been a spare pair of oars in the craft when she came ashore, the big blades being fastened so they could not float away. With these the captain and Tim began to propel the boat toward the sinking craft in which were Mr. Carr and Ned Scudd. The two latter were bailing so fast that they had no chance to row. Bob also went in the gig, but Mr. ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster

... prosperous! ... How do you behave on these lamentable occasions? Oh, believe me, it is comfortable to have an island to hide one's head in! ...' Again he writes in the same month,' 'It is time for England to slip her own cables, and float away into ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... simply attach a line to a float and secure the float to the object. But a float would attract ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin

... whole of that long terrible day, a day of strange unearthliness, when he seemed to float away into a weird dreamland and at times into nightmare, and yet it was not a day of unmixed suffering. The sun glared down pitilessly through the hot hours, the tormenting flies swarmed in their millions, the dead ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... Coniers, who stood at the head of the table, his helmet, axe, truncheon, and a rough map of the walls of Olney before him—"if this be true, if our scouts are not deceived, if the Earl of Warwick is in the village, and if his banner float beside King Edward's,—I say, bluntly, as soldiers should speak, that I have been ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Whose words those vanished tones recall, Float o'er me, when earth's scenes grow dim, And life's last, lingering echoes fall, Till ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard

... is a platform about one and a half feet high. The Isar begins its course close to Mittenwald, and the place on which the raft stood, previous to departure, was very shallow; but water was quickly let in from sluices to float the raft, and off we set with a cargo of peasants, male and female, and merchandise bound for Munich. As the river Isar rushes between immense mountains, and forms a continual descent until the plains of Bavaria open to view, you may conceive with what rapidity we went. We encountered ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... memorial was stone. It was not wood, that would rot, burn up, or float away to the Dead Sea. It was not gold or some precious metal that would be needed for other uses. It was not a piece of parchment or paper upon which was written an account of the crossing. It was common, solid, enduring stone. So, too, the ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry

... proposed that they should take the balloon back along the road to the town, which could easily be done. So the drag rope was tied to the axle of a heavy wagon with a number of men riding on it, and the balloon was allowed to float about a hundred feet from the ground. Charley still rode with the Professor in his basket, and so they reached his home. He was the hero of the day, and, to crown all, the town newspaper printed Charley's story of his trip, just ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... danced more swiftly, making no sound, so phantom-light and graceful that the rhythm of her movement carried her with scarce a touch to earth. That was strength as well as art, but the art made strength seem spiritual power to float on air. Gaiety grew now into her cadences— the utter joy of being young. She seemed to revel in a sense of buoyancy that could lift her above all the grim deceptions of the world of wrath and iron, and make her, like the ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... wall of each low house gleam like mother-o'-pearl. Had there been no secret business on foot, Virginia Beverly's beauty-loving soul would have been on its knees in worship of the scene as she sat on the deck of the yacht, which seemed not to float in water, but to hang suspended in the transparent, mingling azure of sea and sky. To her the moon was an enemy, cruel and terrible. She would have given her right hand for a dark curtain cloud to be drawn across that blazing lamp and the scintillating stars ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson

... the majority with the sea water flowing in and out of them, in some cases merely rushing in at high-water filling deep pools, which are detached from each other when the tide recedes, in others with a sufficient depth of water to allow a large boat to float in. It is hardly necessary to observe how convenient the higher and dry caves are as receptacles for articles which are intended to be concealed, until an opportunity occurs to dispose of them. The Bahamas, ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... violin, a guitar, flute, or a cornet—oh, yes, I know them all!—on a passing vessel, we float alongside just far enough under water to keep our bodies out of sight, while we take in the strains in our own peculiar way. For although our ears might be hard to find, we yet absorb or draw in ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever

... the desert air carried a languor, a dreaminess, tidings of far-off things, and an enthralling promise. The fragrance of flowers, the beauty and grace of women, the sweetness of music, the mystery of life—all seemed to float on that promise. It was the air breathed by the lotus-eaters, when they dreamed, ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey

... to look in. Most of them are furnished with telephones and the city water; here a bride bends over a chafing dish; another glance discloses an oil-painting that was once shown in the Royal Academy. From the next tent float the strains of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and, as we stop to listen, a gentleman and his wife step out. An auto picks them up and off they whirl to Jasper Avenue. The Lord o' the Tents of Shem disappears into his bank ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... sure, this will float as easily as a cork," exclaimed Roger; "and I see no reason why I should not tow the end off aboard the brig. You, Tanda, pay it out as you see ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... to hide, and then, at night-time, creep along a communication trench to the enemy front line, jump across it in a gap between the sentries, and chance getting by the barbed wire and across No Man's Land. Or we would steal to the Somme, float down-stream, and somehow or other pass the entanglements placed across the river by the enemy. Wouff! wouff! Archie was ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... of ... which to Manil .... The country of China is very high, and wooded with pine trees and ... partly lower, also with forests. He said that in the strait they use no wind at all, but that the currents take them in and float them through. They said that those who consider that the island of Bacallao is all one are wrong; for it consists of several small islands in a chain, reaching to Cape Gata, which is in sixty-two degrees, and where ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair

... occasional batteries erected on the shore, and by two large frigates moored across the mouth of the harbour. Thus they were effectually secured from any attempts of small vessels; and as for large ships, there was not water sufficient to float them within fighting distance of the enemy. On the whole, this battle, in which a very considerable number of lives was lost, may be considered as one of the most perilous and important actions that ever happened in any ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... thought that there's a fort near, to which one can run should an enemy appear; and a pleasanter thought still, that the fort is strong and staunch. but, to change the figure, I have a great fancy for paddling my own light canoe, and such small craft will often float, you know, where a ship ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... in enraptured fires, Such as a dream of heaven inspires,— So seem the glad waves to have sought From every place its richest treasure, And borne it to that lovely spot, To found thereon a home of pleasure;— A home where balmy airs might float Through spicy bower and orange grove; Where bright-winged birds might turn the note Which tells of pure and constant love; Where earthquake stay its demon force, And hurricane its wrathful course; Where nymph and fairy find a home, And foot of ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... thistle blossomed and everybody rejoiced. You know how the seeds of that plant are provided with down, that enables them to float on the wind. The seeds of that thistle were borne on the breezes, and all over the colony of Victoria they found a lodging in the soil, grew and prospered, and sent out more seeds. That thistle has been the cause of ruin to many a sheep ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... the Irriwaddy, which had been previously deep enough throughout for our largest steamers, sank so suddenly, and as it appears so unexpectedly, that several of the flotilla were left aground in the middle of the stream, with every prospect of having to remain there until the next rains should float them." ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... plan and its complete execution, see Reports of General Smith and others, Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp. 77-137.] were assigned to command the three detachments of troops and boats assigned to the duty, and reported to Smith. Covered by the darkness and in absolute silence, they were to float down the stream which flowed around Moccasin Point in a great curve under the base of Lookout, on which batteries commanded long reaches of the river both above and below. Reaching the ferry on the enemy's side, they would land ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... But, confound it! she was so obtuse—for I couldn't blurt the truth right out—that, before she caught on, the procession arrived. The catechumen was seated upon an empty beer-barrel, placed upon a sort of float dragged by the boys. They had with them a big drum, that terrible bassoon of Uncle Jake's, and a cornet; the noise was something terrific. Well, Miss Birdie's a good plucked one! She stood on the steps and rebuked ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... along the shore wave in fantastic undulations. When they reached the Cape Telly said, "You had better go around to the cove where father keeps his boats. It's nearer to the house, and there is a float there where you can pull ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... tide should in a few hours set in upon them. After prayer to God, they got upon the mast, and hung there for the space of ten hours, when the poor boy, overcome by cold and exhaustion, fell off, and was drowned. The tide having abated, Crow proposed to take down the masts, and float upon them, which they did; and at ten o'clock at night they were borne away at the mercy of the waves. On Wednesday, in the night, Crow's companion died through fatigue and hunger, and he was left alone, calling upon God for succour. At length he ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... notepaper and locked it up in a drawer. Alicia did not speculate about it, and the whole soul of it was tangled now in a speculation. There had been a time filled with the knowledge and the joy of this new depth in her, like a buoyant sea, and she had been content to float in it, imagining desirable things. Stanhope's waiting contract made a limit to the time—a limit she brought up against without distress or shock, but with a kind of recognising thrill in contact at last with ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... to bait. Eb would shut off the engine, run up to a float, haul in a lot of clothesline, and fin'lly pull up an affair that's a cross between a small crockery crate and an openwork hen-coop. Next he'd grab a big needle and string a dozen or so of the gooey fish on a cord. I watched once. After that I turned my ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... hung heavily over the river. The angler had resumed his work, sheltered under the huge brim of his straw hat; his jacket and waistcoat lay folded by his side. He fished attentively, while the float of his line rocked ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... Patteson's journal does not mention these places, but that of the Bishop speaks of a first landing at Nukapu, and an exchange of names with the old chief Acenana; and the next day of going to the main island, where swarms of natives swam out, with cries of Toki, toki, and planks before them to float through the surf. About 250 assembled at the landing place, as before, chiefly eager for traffic. The Volcano Isle was also touched at, but the language of the few inhabitants was incomprehensible. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Early in 1639, Wotton wrote to Walton about a proposed Life of Donne, to be written by himself, and hoped 'to enjoy your own ever welcome company in the approaching time of the Fly and the Cork.' Wotton was a fly-fisher; the cork, or float, or 'trembling quill,' marks Izaak for the bottom-fisher he was. Wotton died in December 1639; Walton prefixed his own Life of Donne to that divine's sermons in 1640. He says, in the Dedication of the reprint of 1658, that 'it had the approbation of our late ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang

... hand in de water for, papa?" queried Little Stumps, who had left off his work, which consisted mainly of pulling flowers and putting them in the sluice-box to see them float away. He was sitting by his father's side, and he looked up in his ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... consequences arising from the continued compulsory coinage of silver as now directed by law, and who suppose that the addition to the currency of the country intended as its result will be a public benefit, are reminded that history demonstrates that the point is easily reached in the attempt to float at the same time two sorts of money of different excellence when the better will cease to be in general circulation. The hoarding of gold which has already taken place indicates that we shall not escape the usual experience in such cases. So if this silver coinage ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... frequent absences being made possible by the fact that though he had much to do with the government and regulation of the University of St. Andrews, he was not actively employed in giving instruction. But after this we float at once into a halcyon time. It was in the end of 1569 or beginning of 1570 that he was appointed the governor of the King, and in this capacity and amid peaceful surroundings more appropriate to his character ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... were as prosperous as they seemed to be, and that they did not all go to smash amid so many brilliant projects. She was nothing but a woman, and did not know how much of the business prosperity of the world is only a, bubble of credit and speculation, one scheme helping to float another which is no better than it, and the whole liable to come to naught and confusion as soon as the busy brain that conceived them ceases its power to devise, or when some accident produces a ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... mine, no torpedo!" cried Dave, his eyes snapping. "Full speed ahead, Mr. Fernald, and prepare to clear away our launches. That ship cannot float long!" ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock

... increasing Her distance as she may. The noon is sultry, Heated and clammy, I, Towards the live waves turning, slip my tunic, Then run in naked. Cooled and soothed by swimming, Both mind and heart from their late tumult tuned To placid acquiescent health, I float, suspended in the limpid water, Passive, rhythmically governed; So tranced worlds travel ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... Cataneo. The house, erected by Palladio for the Piepolo family, is a square building of the finest style of architecture. There is a stately staircase with a marble portico on each side; the vestibules are crowded with frescoes, and made light by sky-blue ceilings across which graceful figures float amid ornament rich in design, but so well proportioned that the building carries it, as a woman carries her head-dress, with an ease that charms the eye; in short, the grace and dignity that characterize the Procuratie in the piazetta at ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac

... larger than a star, he caught the faint glimmer of a light. As he looked it became more and more distinct, and to his astonishment he saw that it was slowly rising, like a huge will-o'-the-wisp that had suddenly risen from the floor of the cavern to float off into the utter blackness of space above. And even as he stared, gripping Wabi's arm in his excitement, the strange light began ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood

... the middle of the swift stream, and one holds it from floating away below him by grasping the side poles which project at the upper end for that purpose. The two other men, below the trap at its mouth, put large stones on their backs between the shoulder blades, so they will not float downstream, and disappear beneath the water. As quickly as possible, coming up a dozen times to breathe during the process, they clear away the rocks below the trap, piling them in it over its floor, until it finally sinks and remains stationary on the cleared spot of sandy bed. ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... treatment with acids and washing. Soda or potash is not nearly so good for this first boiling as lime—for what reason is somewhat uncertain, but probably because they form with the grease in the cloths soluble soaps, which might float about the kier and accumulate in places where they are not required and thus lead to stains, whereas the insoluble lime soap remains where it was formed. The lime also seems to attack the natural colouring matter of the cotton, and although ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech

... with the master and the 'bibi' as far as the water on which great pirogues of the white people float." ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... and so industriously amorous, that it is possible only to float along over the peaks, to touch only the high points. Why, his letters to the last of his loves alone make up four volumes! And yet, for a life so proverbially given over to flirtations as his, the beginnings were strangely unprophetic. He had reached the mature age of six ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... infamous treason to Sophy so little deserves; yet, as if by those finer perceptions of sense impressed ere they happen, by changes of pleasure and of pain, which Art so mysteriously gives to the minds from which music is born, his airs, of themselves, float in joy: Like a bird at the coming of spring, it is gladness ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... now, and presently the Ithaca began to float. No sooner was it apparent that she was free than the Dyaks sprang into the water and swam to her side. Like monkeys they scrambled aboard, swarming below deck in search, thought von Horn, of pillage. He prayed that they would ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... straw-shed. I got him in with some trouble, and he has fallen asleep. I thought this would be the explanation of his absence! No stones dressed for Miller Kench, the great wheel of the saw-mills waiting for new float-boards, even the poor folk not able to get their ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy

... but hover over her head in the air, For she has only minutes. When she signed Her heart began to break. Hush, hush, I hear The brazen door of Hell move on its hinges, And the eternal revelry float hither ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats

... tennis in flannels on the courts of yellow, hard-packed sand. The intense blue of an Italian sky lent a factitious transparency to the atmosphere, and the tiny irregular shadows that indicated the colossal architecture of New York seemed to float like bubbles in an azure bowl. Across the street, a vacant plot of land, neglected because of imperfect title, was cut diagonally by a footpath leading down to Broad Street, where, out of sight but not of ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... miniature surf. And I calculated on the receding of a wave. Then with one quick pull I slid our beautiful quarry up on the coral sand. The instant he was out of the water the leader snapped. I was ready for this, too. But at that it was an awful instant! As the wave came back, almost deep enough to float the bonefish, I scooped ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... home the maiden learned many wonderful things. She found she possessed strange powers, not known to her before. She could float on a cloud at will, and she seemed filled ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers

... exclaimed with a fresh ring of animation and hopefulness in his voice. "The very thing! Of course there would be a hatchway to the forecastle of the lugger. We might get that loosened beforehand, so that it would float off. What is the size of ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... the weather was intensely hot on shore, it was comfortably cool at the Head, where the wind came over five or six miles of salt water cool from the ocean. The boys leaped ashore, and hauled up their boats where the rising tide could not float them off. There were over twenty of them, all members ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic

... frequently heard complaints of fasters are headaches, dry, cracked lips, dizziness, blurred vision with black spots that float, skin rashes, and weakness in the first few days plus what they think is intense hunger. The dizziness and weakness are really real, and are due to increased levels of toxins circulating in the blood and from unavoidably low blood sugar which is a natural consequence of the ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... first describe the usual practice of reeling, which is as follows: The cocoons are put into a basin of boiling water, on the surface of which they float. They are stirred about so as to be as uniformly acted upon as possible. The hot water softens the gum, and allows the floss to become partially detached. This process is called "cooking" the cocoons. When the cocoons are sufficiently cooked, they are subjected ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... he answered laconically. "Build a dugout there, and float downstream. Portage the rapids ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... full. It was not. Staring blankly over the side of the ship she saw a buoy float slowly by. She saw it with the utmost clearness, and on its round black surface was painted in white letters the word "Flank." There could not be two Flank buoys. It was the Flank buoy of the Mozewater navigable channel. ... She glanced around. The well-remembered ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... machines and established the first Naval Flying School at that place. The same year Commander O. Swann purchased from Messrs. A. V. Roe a 35 horse-power biplane and began to carry out experiments with different types of floats, as a result of which a twin-float seaplane was produced—the first to rise off ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes

... from Maurice she met with nothing but rebuffs; he was silent and sullen, and spent most of the day in the workshop, slowly planing scraps of deal board, and watching with a careless eye the curled shavings float to ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... from him at cards, but such was not the truth. Some went in an Indian bank in which he invested it. A portion was lost at cards. But with some of it,—the larger part as I think,—he endeavoured, in concert with his stepfather, to float a newspaper, which failed. There seem to have been two newspapers in which he was so concerned, The National Standard and The Constitutional. On the latter he was engaged with his stepfather, and in carrying that on he lost the last of his money. ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... on from midday till sunset. There was nothing but a wall of reed on each bank, and we saw every prospect of spending a supperless night in our float; but just as the short twilight of these parts was commencing, we perceived on the north bank the village of Moremi, one of the Makololo, whose acquaintance I had made on our former visit, and who was now located on the island Mahonta (lat. 17d 58' S., ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... faithful illustration etched with a skilful needle to adorn the last chapter of Political Justice. Evil is once more and always something factitious and unessential. The Spirit of the Earth sees the "ugly human shapes and visages" which men had worn in the old bad days float away through the air like chaff on the wind. They were no more than masks. Thrones are kingless, and forthwith men walk in upright equality, neither fawning nor trembling. ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford

... guess you and your old crowd are the last of the Mohicans. I doubt if there'll even be any chaperons left. Joan may not smoke nor drink. Who cares for 'vices,' anyhow? But you haven't got a moat and drawbridge round Rincona, and she'll just get out and mix. She'll float with the stream—and all ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... mark'd a little boat, Which on the nearest waves appear'd to float: Its airy sail with snow-white radiance blazed; Its blue prow tinged the waters.—As he gazed, Lo! the clouds opened, and with sudden glare A dazzling form descended thro' the air. Swift as a sea-bird darting o'er the deep, Or meteor hovering with ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... yellow the noon-time, Float past like specks in the eye; I set every tree in my June time, And now they obscure ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy

... barefooted boy as the thrill of a nibble! Two darkies sat on a rock on the bank of a river, fishing. One was an old darkey; the other was a boy. The boy got a nibble, his foot slipped, and he fell headlong into the surging waters and began to float out to the middle of the stream, sinking, and rising, and struggling, and crying for help. The old man hesitated on the rock for a moment; then he plunged in after the drowning boy, and after a desperate struggle, landed his companion safely on shore. A ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... little Chinese girl, They say I've almond eyes, I live in a boat, on a river we float, And often eat rice ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg

... peak of some isolated mountain at daybreak, when the night mists first rise from off the plains, and watch their white and lake-like fields, as they float in level bays and winding gulfs about the islanded summits of the lower hills, untouched yet by more than dawn, colder and more quiet than a windless sea under the moon of midnight; watch when the first sunbeam ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... its bit and bridle were removed and the present quickly adjusted to its head, Harry Frere taking up a hole or two here and there till a perfect adaptation was made, when as if proud of its new finery the noble charger tossed up its head, making the scarlet hanging plume float about in the glowing air, and then stood motionless with head erect. Once more there was a loud outburst from the chief's assembled followers, and he stood looking as proud as the horse. Then he walked ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... were no teams to draw it from the opposite bank, where it was abundant. The only way of supplying fuel, for some time before my arrival, had been to cut trees on the north bank of the river at a considerable distance up the stream, form rafts of it and float it down with the current, effecting a landing on the south side within our lines by the use of paddles or poles. It would then be carried on the shoulders of the ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... few more strokes and she could touch the bottom, when suddenly all grew black before her eyes, and whispering, "I'll float. Call, Milly, and don't mind me," Ruth turned over, still holding the child fast, and with nothing but her face out of water, feebly ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... privatization and customs reform measures, but the government is likely to pursue these initiatives cautiously and gradually to avoid a public backlash over potential inflation or layoffs associated with the reforms. Monetary pressures on an overvalued Egyptian pound led the government to float the currency in January 2003, leading to a sharp drop in its value and consequent inflationary pressure. The existence of a black market for hard currency is evidence that the government continues to influence the official exchange rate offered in banks. In September ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... the sake of Mary the one real attachment of his youth. It has been considered somewhat probable that Alice W. was an imaginary being—some Celia, or Campaspe, or Lindamira; that she was in effect one of those visions which float over us when we escape from childhood. But it may have been a real love, driven deeper into the heart, and torn out for another love, more holy and as pure: for he was capable of a grand sacrifice. No one will, perhaps, ever ascertain the truth precisely. It must remain undiscovered—magnified ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall

... standing at her elbow, whispered warningly—"Frances Eden." She smiled, and a little colour flushed her cheeks. Did he imagine that she had forgotten? that the name of Affleck was anything more to her than a bit of floating thistledown, which had rested on her for a moment only to float away again, to be carried by some light wind into illimitable space, to be henceforth and for ever less than nothing to her? After signing her new name a cheque- book was handed to her; then Mr. Tytherleigh instructed her in the mysterious art ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... upon the depth Of the unspoken; even your loved words Float in the larger meaning of your voice As something dimmer. 1779 GEORGE ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various

... of Gartan's triple lake. Her hearth-stone or couch is shown there to this day, where once in slumber, before the birth of her son, she saw in a glorious visionary dream a symbol of his future greatness. A vast veil woven of sunshine and flowers seemed to float down upon her from heaven: an exquisitely poetic thought, which gives us warrant to believe that Columcille's poetic skill was ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... and the Arab porters as they hauled huge trunks off the ship onto a float. Then one after the other the two tenders puffed away, packed from stem to stern. A few people for whom there was no room embarked in small boats manned by jabbering Arabs. Two of these cockle-shells still moved up and down under the black, mountainous side of ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... Again weighing anchor, in a quarter of an hour we entered Porto Leone,—the ancient Piraeus; which, though deep enough to float a seventy-four, is so very narrow at the entrance, that there is but sufficient space for a vessel to pass, with a few feet on either side to spare. We regretted the orders were, to be on board at night, and that ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... dear, dear! where are our ballads all this while? Drifted sadly to leeward, we fear, according to a bad habit of ours, of letting any breeze, from whatever point of the compass it may chance to blow, fill our sails, and float us away before it, utterly unmindful of our original purpose and destination. Thus have we, to the tune of an old Hall and its garniture, sailed away from that which we were aiming—trying to find out, and describe the peculiar fascination of our loved old ballads; flattering ourselves, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... Francisco Pizarro, Juan de Ezcarag, and Alonzo Martin to reconnoitre the environs and to discover the shortest roads by which the sea might be reached. It was the last of these who arrived first at the coast, and, entering a canoe which chanced to lie there, and pushing it into the waves, let it float a little while, and, after pleasing himself with having been the first Spaniard who entered the South ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... No; they never talk before ladies of any subject in which ladies cannot join. And she has plenty to say for herself when she pleases. But when conversation pleases her, she likes to listen and be silent. It strikes me, by a few words that float this way, that they are discussing the Art of Dining. She ought to be a proficient in it, for she lives much in the world, and has met as many persons whom she is equally willing either to meet to-morrow, or never to meet again, as any regular dineur en ville. And indeed that ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... the four other dogs were fighting furiously in the water, Shawn, having felt exhausted, was obliged to lie on his back and float, in order to regain ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... to throw overboard so much as a child. The chap they're arter is nothing but one of the fenders, with the deep sea lashed to its smaller end, and a tarpaulin stopped on the larger! Mr. Sennit need be in no great hurry, for I'll engage his 'man overboard' will float ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... told. She felt the tip of the cuckoo's softest feather pass gently two or three times over her eyelids, and a delicious scent seemed immediately to float before her. ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... God to men, Heed ye not the nation's sin? Heaven's blessing can ye win If ye falter now? Men of blood now ask your vote, O'er your heads their banners float; Raise, Oh raise the warning note, ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark

... ladies call their trinkets, than I care to see on a person in her position. Her voice is strident, her laugh too much like a giggle, and she has that foolish way of dancing and bobbing like a quill-float with a "minnum" biting the hook below it, which one sees and weeps over sometimes in persons of more pretensions. I can't help hoping we shall put something into that empty chair yet which will add the missing string to our social ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... luck to your fishing, whom watch ye to-night? A man of mean, or a man of might? Is it layman or priest that must float in your cove, Or lover who crosses to visit his love? Hark! heard ye the Kelpy reply, as we pass'd,— "God's blessing on the warder, he lock'd the bridge fast! All that come to my cove are sunk, Priest or layman, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... we assume these to be the central seat of the muscular feelings) may suffice to give rise to a complete representation of a fully executed movement. And thus in our sleep we seem to walk, ride, float, ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... flowers of vallisneria approach still nearer to apparent animality, as they detach themselves from the parent plant, and float on the surface of the water to the female ones. Botanic Garden, Part II. Art. Vallisneria. Other flowers of the classes of monecia and diecia, and polygamia, discharge the fecundating farina, which floating in ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... upon the air was the sound of noisy talk and boisterous laughter. Through the midst of this great green hollow a stream wound that broadened out in one place into a still and sleepy pool upon whose placid surface stars seemed to float, a deep pool whereby was a tall tree. Now beneath this tree, far removed from the fire, sat a great swarthy fellow, chin on fist, scowling down at that which lay at his feet, and of a sudden he spurned this still and silent ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... go, Leaping limb and pointing toe, Slender arms that float and flow, Curving wand above, below; Flying, gliding, changing feet; Onset merging ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... to what they are, it can only be known by approximating to the state of soul out of which they grew. They are many and precious; yet is there not so much of high excellence as I looked for. They will not float the heart on a boundless sea of feeling, like the starry night on our Western Prairies. Yet I love much to see the galleries of marbles, even where there are not many separately admirable, amid the cypresses and ilexes of Roman villas; ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... their death came Merlin, and took Sir Balin's sword and fixed on it a new pommel, and set it in a mighty stone, which then, by magic, he made float upon the water. And so, for many years, it floated to and fro around the island, till it swam down the river to Camelot, where young Sir Galahad achieved it, ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles

... moment, by a train of causes and effects which reaches back to the very creation of the universe. The grain of dust can no more go from God's presence, or flee from God's Spirit, than you or I can. If it go up to the physical heaven, and float (as it actually often does) far above the clouds, in those higher strata of the atmosphere which the aeronaut has never visited, whither the Alpine snow-peaks do not rise, even there it will be obeying physical laws which we term hastily laws of Nature, but which are really ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley

... How in the world did ever she get here? I knew she'd left the Turon, and that old Mullockson had dropped a lot of his money in a big mining company he'd helped to float, and that never turned out gold enough to pay for the quicksilver in the first crushing. We'd heard afterwards that he'd died and she'd married again; but I never expected to see her brought down so low as this—not but what we'd known many a woman that started on the ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... Sometimes they float about and sparkle and she wears little crowns on her head—or flowers. She laughs," Robin described eagerly. "A great many people come to see her. They all laugh. Sometimes they sing. I lie ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... me to-day about the crucifix, when I was bringing it from the cave. It seemed to float into my brain—I can't say from what quarter—that I had better leave the crucifix for Bill. It wasn't more than he had a right to, really—and there is no virtue in a cross-bones to make a man ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... the bitterness of disappointment—"The coward and the brave man are held in equal honour." Nay, he goes further, and quarrels with providence and fixed destiny.—"After all, the idler, and the man of many achievements, each must die."[3] To-morrow, he adds, his vessels shall float on the Hellespont. The morning dawned; but the ships of Achilles still lingered near the banks of the Scamander. The notes of battle sounded, and his mind was still in suspense between the fiery impulse for war and ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... least I have shunned the common shore, And leaving land far out of sight, would skim The Ocean of Eternity:[527] the roar Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim, But still sea-worthy skiff; and she may float Where ships have foundered, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... were transferred to water; next morning they were found discoloured and evidently killed. The secretion decomposes the chloride very readily; the glands themselves becoming coated with the thinnest layer of metallic gold, and particles float about on the surface ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... hairs, etc., are used for tails. Many of the standard patterns are tied without tails; however, on all of my dry flies, I tie three or four stiff fibers or hairs. They balance the fly and help it to float much better. ...
— How to Tie Flies • E. C. Gregg

... of the boats that drifted beside the boathouse float, Carson dabbling his fingers ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... French would not wait for the assault, but slip away to their boats; even with Levis they could scarcely be four thousand strong. Bradstreet, having finished his bridge, had started back for the landing-stage to haul a dozen of the lighter bateaux across the portage and float them down to Lake Champlain filled with riflemen. Bradstreet was a glutton for work—but would he be in time? That old fox Montcalm would never let his earths be stopped so easily, and to pile defences on the ridge was simply to build himself into a trap. A good half ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... chagrin, he ascertained at the same time, that the great roof passed three feet beyond the line of the small one, and that if even he should succeed in attaching his second rope to the corbel, the other end of it would float in empty space. This reflection made him shudder; and turning his eyes from the precipice, he examined the ridge-pole, where he thought he saw a piece of iron projecting. He was not mistaken: it was a kind of ornamental molding, which formed the ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... speak the word—Eternity. Other creatures are happy while immersed in time; we have another nature, and are disturbed by a thought which shines high above the roaring sea of circumstance in which we float. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren



Words linked to "Float" :   locomote, launch, presentation, preserver, move, bob, drink, buoy, artefact, ride, smoothen, try, travel, try out, waft, time interval, convert, essay, bobber, sac, transport, examine, display, hand tool, chip, test, life preserver, tide, masonry, value, change over, stream, artifact, go, smooth, prove, raft, flotation device, stock, interval, pontoon, sink, cork, flotation



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