Floor definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (63)

American Heritage Dictionary (20)

noun The surface of a room on which one stands.
noun The lower or supporting surface of a structure.
noun A story or level of a building.

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Century Dictionary (29)

That part of a room or of an edifice which forms its lower inclosing surface, and upon which one walks; specifically, the structure, consisting in modern houses of boards, planks, pavement, asphalt, etc., which forms such a surface. An ordinary floor of timber consists in its simplest form of boards laid down close together and supported upon a series of joists, as shown in fig. A. In floors over wider spaces, or in buildings of more costly construction, the floor-joists are themselves supported by additional beams or joists called binders, as shown in figs. B and C, the ceiling-joists of the room below being fastened to the under side of the binders. It is usual in houses, etc., to brace and secure the floor-joists by means of crossed struts, as shown in fig. D, forming a strutted floor. In fireproof buildings the wooden joists are replaced by iron I beams, the spaces between which are bridged over by narrow vaults of brick, concrete, tiles, etc. To rest he layd him downe upon the flore (Whylome for ventrous Knights the bedding best), And thought his wearie limbs to have redrest. Spenser, F. Q., IV. v. 39. Ay he harpit, and ay he carpit, Till a' the lords gaed through the floor. Lochmaben Harper (Child's Ballads, VI. 5). And the floor of the house he [Solomon] overlaid with gold, within and without. 1 Ki. vi. 30.
Any similar construction, platform, or leveled area: as, the floor of a bridge; the charge-floor of a blast-furnace; a threshing-floor. He will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner. Mat. iii. 12. The level places where the bricks are moulded, called the floors. C. T. Davis, Bricks, p. 103.
A natural surface corresponding to a floor in character or use; a circumscribed basal space or area of any kind: as, the floor of a gorge or a cave; the floor of one of the ventricles of the brain. For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. Milton, Lycidas, l. 167. After the last mining shaft is passed, and the floors where the precions blue clay lies to be pulverised by the sun's action, the frontier of the Free State is crossed. Fortnightly Rev., N. S., XLIII. 198. The floor of this many-hued passageway is white sand and sandstone. The Century, XXXVII. 195. The characteristic feature of a bed is that it is a member of a series of stratified rocks; the layer above it is called the roof of the deposit, and the one below it is the floor. Encyc. Brit., XVI. 440.

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Examples (50)

In the middle of the floor was a pile of goods, which they had intended to carry down to the boat. — Field and Forest The Fortunes of a Farmer
On the floor were a black bearskin from Makon and a brilliant Navajo that Suma-theek had given him. — Still Jim
I think every gentleman on this floor is as well satisfied as I am that Duluth is destined to become the commercial metropolis of the universe, and that this road should be built at once. — The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X)
In the dimness beside them lay the loose coils of some very thick, dark cable--And standing near the center of the floor was a thing that at once riveted his attention on it completely. — The Winds of Time
In another, in the Chβtelet, the floor was all the time covered by water, in which the prisoners must stand. — Folkways A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals

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wall · side · roof · table · grind · bed · deck · room · surface · corner · board · step

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Middle English flor, from Old English flōr; see pelə-² in Indo-European roots.

Century Dictionary (2)

Early modern English also floare, flore; dial. fleer; from Middle English floor, flore, flor, from Anglo-Saxon flōr, floor, = Dutch vloer = Middle Low German vlōr, Low German floor, a floor, = Middle High German vluor, masculine and feminine, German flur, masculine, floor, flooring, entrance-hall, flur, feminine, field, plain, level ground, = Icelandic flōr, the floor of a cow-stall, = Irish and Gaelic lār (for orig. *plār) = Welsh llawr = Breton leur, floor.
= Dutch vloeren = Old Danish flore; from the noun.

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