What's the difference between float and flotsam?

Float


Definition:

  • (v. i.) Anything which floats or rests on the surface of a fluid, as to sustain weight, or to indicate the height of the surface, or mark the place of, something.
  • (v. i.) A mass of timber or boards fastened together, and conveyed down a stream by the current; a raft.
  • (v. i.) The hollow, metallic ball of a self-acting faucet, which floats upon the water in a cistern or boiler.
  • (v. i.) The cork or quill used in angling, to support the bait line, and indicate the bite of a fish.
  • (v. i.) Anything used to buoy up whatever is liable to sink; an inflated bag or pillow used by persons learning to swim; a life preserver.
  • (v. i.) A float board. See Float board (below).
  • (v. i.) A contrivance for affording a copious stream of water to the heated surface of an object of large bulk, as an anvil or die.
  • (v. i.) The act of flowing; flux; flow.
  • (v. i.) A quantity of earth, eighteen feet square and one foot deep.
  • (v. i.) The trowel or tool with which the floated coat of plastering is leveled and smoothed.
  • (v. i.) A polishing block used in marble working; a runner.
  • (v. i.) A single-cut file for smoothing; a tool used by shoemakers for rasping off pegs inside a shoe.
  • (v. i.) A coal cart.
  • (v. i.) The sea; a wave. See Flote, n.
  • (n.) To rest on the surface of any fluid; to swim; to be buoyed up.
  • (n.) To move quietly or gently on the water, as a raft; to drift along; to move or glide without effort or impulse on the surface of a fluid, or through the air.
  • (v. t.) To cause to float; to cause to rest or move on the surface of a fluid; as, the tide floated the ship into the harbor.
  • (v. t.) To flood; to overflow; to cover with water.
  • (v. t.) To pass over and level the surface of with a float while the plastering is kept wet.
  • (v. t.) To support and sustain the credit of, as a commercial scheme or a joint-stock company, so as to enable it to go into, or continue in, operation.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A few free-floating cells could be observed in the lumen of this intermediate portion, most of which were macrophages.
  • (2) Just a few months ago, a director-level position job for Sears was floated by me from the department store chain's headquarters in Chicago.
  • (3) Hamish Kale Floating sauna near Uppsala, Sweden Just outside Uppsala, around one hour north of Stockholm, lies the picturesque outdoor adventure area of Fjällnora.
  • (4) Type II cells cultured on floating feeder layers in medium containing 1% CS-rat serum and 10(-5) M hydrocortisone plus 0.5 mM dibutyryl cyclic AMP exhibited significantly increased incorporation of [14C]acetate into total lipids (238% of control).
  • (5) Nonetheless some strange theories have been floated.
  • (6) Lymphocytes with low floating density lyse NK-sensitive target cells and leukemic B-lymphocytes, increase the lytic activity with respect to blasts of K-562 line under the effect of alpha-interferon.
  • (7) So Huck Finn floats down the great river that flows through the heart of America, and on this adventure he is accompanied by the magnificent figure of Jim, a runaway slave, who is also making his bid for freedom.
  • (8) An Artist of the Floating World won the Whitbread Book of the Year award and was nominated for the Booker prize for fiction; The Remains of the Day won the Booker; and When We Were Orphans, perceived by many reviewers as a disappointment, was nominated for both the Booker and the Whitbread.
  • (9) The government will formally begin the sale of Royal Mail on Thursday by announcing its intention to float the 497-year-old postal service on the London Stock Exchange.
  • (10) See kajakkompaniet.se and langholmenkajak.se for information Swimming, Liljeholmsbadet Stockholmers swim all year round at the floating bath on lake Mälaren in Hornstull on Södermalm.
  • (11) Two hundred six floating fusions were performed, of which 184 were available for follow-up.
  • (12) You float a tiny distance above, suspended by the repulsion between atoms.
  • (13) My Paul Nuttalls routine has floated back up the U-bend | Stewart Lee Read more Nuttall told Marr that “nothing should be a sacred cow in British politics.
  • (14) In 2011, a young sperm whale was found floating dead off the Greek island of Mykonos.
  • (15) Chinese drugs constitute a unique medicinal system that features the following three subsystems: subsystem of medicinal substances consisting of traditional theories such as "four properties and five tastes of drugs" and "the principal, adjuvant, auxiliary and conduct ingredients in a prescription' , etc; subsystem of pharmacological actions comprising the theory of "ascending, descending, floating and sinking", etc; Subsystem of human body's functions incorporating the theory of "drugs to act on the channels".
  • (16) In heavily mineralized bone matrix, the periodic pattern of collagen fibrils was retained, and the electron density of mineralized matrix in freeze-substituted and unstained sections which had been floated on ethylene glycol was greater than that encountered in sections processed in aqueous reagents.
  • (17) SCLC variant lines could further be divided into (a) biochemical variant lines having variant biochemical profile but retaining typical SCLC morphology and growth characteristics; and (b) morphological variant (SCLC-MV) lines having variant biochemical profile, altered morphology (features of large cell undifferentiated carcinoma) and altered growth characteristics (growth as loosely attached floating aggregates, relatively short doubling times and cloning efficiencies).
  • (18) The outcome is a belief that the Earth is being slowly strangled by a gaudy coat of impermeable plastic waste that collects in great floating islands in the world's oceans; clogs up canals and rivers; and is swallowed by animals, birds and sea creatures.
  • (19) Comparative lipid-binding studies with dimyristoyl phosphatidylcholine gave complexes for native and synthetic apoprotein which floated at the same density after ultracentrifugation in KBr gradients and had virtually the same lipid:protein ratios.
  • (20) This technique was used to bring misdirected urinations in a severely retarded male under rapid stimulus control of a floating target in the commode.

Flotsam


Definition:

  • (n.) Alt. of Flotson

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Injudicious as Neil Hamilton's misdemeanors were, they were only the flotsam on the tide of Tory sleaze.
  • (2) There are question marks being raised as to whether you could interpret this as being anything other than flotsam,” he said.
  • (3) Succinct tales of fracture and failure, and thumbnail sketches of lonely desperation, positively revelling in the flotsam of American life are all set to jaunty rock and ragtime rhythms.
  • (4) There’s weightier stuff underneath, the post-second-world-war search for meaning of Anderson’s last film The Master washing up here in the flotsam of California’s alternative communities (the director adapted Pynchon’s 2009 novel during a hiatus in development on the earlier work).
  • (5) MH370 search: 'rogue pilot' theory still on Australian investigators' radar Read more Two other pieces of flotsam, found on Réunion and Mozambique , are suspected to come from the plane, but are yet to be positively identified.
  • (6) There's a wood-burning stove, and bits of sculpture everywhere – a couple of large marrows sculpted in brass, another of concrete; a skull with gold-tipped teeth (like Lucas's own, they flash when she smiles); a pair of pert round breasts, perched like jellies atop shelves of music; small casts of her boyfriend Julian Simmons's penis, made for her show Penetralia , which opened in 2008; a big painting by Raymond Pettibon; huge red platform shoes and black fetish boots that she will cast in concrete and show in Krems, Austria in July; a general, seaside sense of driftwood and flotsam.
  • (7) Coastal communities on the US west coast are now discussing what to do with the large quantities of flotsam that could make it ashore in the coming months.
  • (8) A dead pig lolls among the flotsam on South Tarawa beach.
  • (9) He set about interviewing the crossing-sweepers, Punch and Judy entertainers, sandwich-sellers, rag-gatherers, rat-killers, doll's-eye makers, thieves, prostitutes, beggars, and all the other pieces of human flotsam and jetsam that had washed up in the capital.
  • (10) It's a bold combo that would turn heads in dour downtown Montreal, although Claire looks perfectly at home among the junkshop flotsam and aborted art projects of La Brique, a former industrial loft that's now the epicentre of the city's colourful underground scene.
  • (11) For those sweet souls out there whose minds have remained unsullied by the flotsam and jetsam of the fashion world, I shall explain.
  • (12) Everybody knows that we shall not be detaining the Saudi paymasters of terror for 42 days; just as happened under internment, we shall be scraping up the flotsam and jetsam of communities.
  • (13) Beachcombers began to pick their way through the flotsam and jetsam thrown on to the shore.
  • (14) Is Maya, like Ishmael, the lone survivor left clinging to the flotsam of the Pequod?
  • (15) When we started out, we picked up all sorts of flotsam and jetsam.
  • (16) Those of us already caught in its grip are but flotsam, inconvenient but ultimately discardable.
  • (17) It’s one thing to spill your guts in your own book, but another to do so among the Z-list flotsam and jetsam in the CBB house.

Words possibly related to "flotsam"