Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • 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.
  • noun The occupants of such a story.
  • noun A level surface or area used for a specified purpose.
  • noun Basketball The court viewed as the playing area for taking free throws, in contrast to the foul line.
  • noun The surface of a structure on which vehicles travel.
  • noun The part of a legislative chamber or meeting hall where members are seated and from which they speak.
  • noun The right to address an assembly, as granted under parliamentary procedure.
  • noun The body of assembly members.
  • noun The part of a room or building where the principal business or work takes place, especially.
  • noun The area of an exchange where securities are traded.
  • noun The part of a retail store in which merchandise is displayed and sales are made.
  • noun The area of a factory where the product is manufactured or assembled.
  • noun The ground or lowermost surface, as of a forest or ocean.
  • noun A lower limit or base.
  • transitive verb To provide with a floor.
  • transitive verb Informal To press (the accelerator of a motor vehicle) to the floor.
  • transitive verb To knock down.
  • transitive verb To stun; overwhelm.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To cover or furnish with a floor: as, to floor a house with pine boards.
  • To place upon a floor; base.
  • To place near or on the floor, as a picture in an exhibition.
  • To strike down or lay level with the floor; beat; conquer; figuratively, to put to silence by some decisive argument, retort, etc.; overcome in any way; overthrow: as, to floor an assailant.
  • To go through; make an end of; finish.
  • noun 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.
  • noun Any similar construction, platform, or leveled area: as, the floor of a bridge; the charge-floor of a blast-furnace; a threshing-floor.
  • noun 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.
  • noun One complete section of a building having one continuous or approximately continuous floor; a story: as, an office on the first floor.
  • noun Nautical, that part of the bottom of a vessel on each side of the keelson which is most nearly horizontal.
  • noun In legislative assemblies, the part of the house assigned to the members, and from which they speak; hence, figuratively, the right of speaking or right to be heard in preference to other members: as, the gentleman from New York has the floor.
  • noun In mining, a flat mass of ore.
  • noun A plane; a surface.
  • noun In brewing, same as piece.
  • noun In wood ship-building, same as floor-timber.
  • noun In iron ship-building, the bottom part of a frame, consisting of the floor-plate, frame-bar, and the reverse frame-bar.
  • noun A unit formerly used in the measurement of excavation and embankment.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The bottom or lower part of any room; the part upon which we stand and upon which the movables in the room are supported.
  • noun The structure formed of beams, girders, etc., with proper covering, which divides a building horizontally into stories. Floor in sense 1 is, then, the upper surface of floor in sense 2.
  • noun The surface, or the platform, of a structure on which we walk or travel.
  • noun A story of a building. See Story.
  • noun U.S., U.S. The part of the house assigned to the members.
  • noun U.S. The right to speak.
  • noun (Naut.) That part of the bottom of a vessel on each side of the keelson which is most nearly horizontal.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

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

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old English flōr ("floor, pavement, ground, bottom"), from Proto-Germanic *flōrō, *flōrô, *flōraz (“flat surface, floor, plain”), from Proto-Indo-European *plõro- (“level, even”), from Proto-Indo-European *pele-, *plet-, *plāk- (“broad, flat, plain”). Cognate with West Frisian flier ("floor"), Dutch vloer ("floor"), German Flur ("field, floor, entrance hall"), Swedish flor ("floor of a cow stall"), Irish urlár ("floor"), Scottish Gaelic làr ("floor, ground, earth"), Welsh llawr ("ground, pavement"), Latin plānus ("level, flat").

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