floor

plural floors

1. countableThe interior bottom or surface of a house or building; the supporting surface of a room.

   The room has a wooden floor.

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   A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.

   1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0016

2. biologyThe bottom surface of a natural structure, entity, or space (e.g. cave, forest, ocean, desert, etc.); the ground (surface of the Earth).

   Many sunken ships rest on the ocean floor.

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   The leaves covering the forest floor provide many hiding-places for small animals.

   The floor of a cave served the refugees as a home.

   The pit floor showed where a ring of post holes had been.

   The floor of the cave was covered with white sand that had been washed in by the river.

   1989 May, Uwe George, “Venezuela's Islands in Time”, in National Geographic, volume 175, number 5, page 561

3. UKcolloquialdialectalThe ground.

   After stepping off the bus, my wallet fell on the floor.

4. architectureA structure formed of beams, girders, etc, with proper covering, which divides a building horizontally into storeys/stories.
5. The supporting surface or platform of a structure such as a bridge.

   Wooden planks of the old bridge's floor were nearly rotten.

6. countablearchitectureA storey/story of a building.

   For years we lived on the third floor.

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   When Timothy and Julia hurried up the staircase to the bedroom floor, where a considerable commotion was taking place, Tim took Barry Leach with him. He had him gripped firmly by the arm, since he felt it was not safe to let him loose, and he had no immediate idea what to do with him.

   1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 19, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC

7. In a parliament, the part of the house assigned to the members, as opposed to the viewing gallery.
8. broadlyThe right to speak at a given time during a debate or other public event.

   The mayor often gives a lobbyist the floor.

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   Will the senator from Arizona yield the floor?

   Synonyms: possession

9. nauticalThat part of the bottom of a vessel on each side of the keelson which is most nearly horizontal.
10. businessA horizontal, flat ore body; the rock underlying a stratified or nearly horizontal deposit.
11. businessThe bottom of a pit, pothole or mine.
12. mathematicsThe largest integer less than or equal to a given number.

    The floor of 4.5 is 4.

13. gymnasticsAn event performed on a floor-like carpeted surface; floor exercise
14. gymnasticsA floor-like carpeted surface for performing gymnastic movements.
15. businessA lower limit or minimum on a price or rate, a price floor. Opposite of a cap or ceiling.
16. A dance floor.

    Open the door, get on the floor / Everybody walk the dinosaur

    1987, "Walk the Dinosaur", Was (Not Was)

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    She's a maniac, maniac on the floor / And she's dancing like she never danced before

    1983, "Maniac", Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky

    Meet me on the floor tonight Show me how to move like the water

    2025 April 4, Ed Sheeran, Ilya Salmanzadeh, Johnny McDaid, Savan Kotecha, “Azizam”, in Play, performed by Ed Sheeran

17. The trading floor of a stock exchange, pit; the area in which business is conducted at a convention or exhibition.
18. The area of a casino where gambling occurs.

    At each table stood a young, slim, poker-faced croupier serving the punters who anxiously watched the turning of the cards. The next two floors were similar though not quite as spectacular and the stakes were lower.

    2004, Tim Hatton, Tock Tock Birds: A Spider in the Web of International Terrorism, page 284

19. The area of an establishment where food and drink are served to customers.

    The conference started as an impromptu session in the coffee shop this morning when waitresses walked off the floor rather than serve four Negro men and women delegates.

    1947 March 18, U.S. Government Printing Office, Proceedings and Debates of the Congress, Eightieth Congress, First Session, page 2206

present singular third person floors · participle present flooring · participle past floored · past floored

1. transitiveTo cover or furnish with a floor.

   floor a house with pine boards

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   The huge square box, parquet-floored and high-ceilinged, had been arranged to display a suite of bedroom furniture designed and made in the halcyon days of the last quarter of the nineteenth century,[…].

   1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC

2. To strike down or lay level with the floor; to knock down.

   Sam floored him perpetually, and beat his face to a jelly, without getting a scratch.

   1821, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, volume 8, page 67

3. datedinformalTo hang (a picture on exhibition) near the base of a wall, where it cannot easily be seen.

   Antonyms: sky

4. slangtransitivedrivingTo push (a pedal) down to the floor, especially to accelerate.

   our driver floored the pedal

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   I don't remember much about the flight from Chicago to Denver. We landed a little after eleven, and I ran through the airport, ran to my car. Floored it most of the way home.

   2008, Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed, Ch.7, at p.161

5. informaltransitiveTo silence by a conclusive answer or retort.

   floor an opponent

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   Floored or crushed by him.

   c. 1827-1833, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes on Hacket

6. informaltransitiveusually passive voiceTo amaze or greatly surprise.

   We were floored by his confession.

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   Some of the attendees were “absolutely floored,” said an official familiar with the proceedings. That someone in the U.S. government could “make an argument that is so nakedly against transparency, in light of the unfolding catastrophe, was…shocking and disturbing.”

   2021 June 3, Katherine Eban, “The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins”, in Vanity Fair

7. colloquialtransitiveTo finish or make an end of.

   floor a college examination

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   I've floored my little-go work

   1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], Tom Brown at Oxford: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, →OCLC

8. mathematicsTo set a lower bound.

   floored division