online medical dictionary | definition of floating

1. Buoyed upon or in a fluid; a, the floating timbers of a wreck; floating motes in the air.

2. Free or lose from the usual attachment; as, the floating ribs in man and some other animals.

3. Not funded; not fixed, invested, or determined; as, floating capital; a floating debt. "Trade was at an end. Floating capital had been withdrawn in great masses from the island.

<medicine>" (Macaulay) Floating anchor See Dock. Floating harbor, a breakwater of cages or booms, anchored and fastened together, and used as a protection to ships riding at anchor to leeward.

<botany> Floating heart, threads which span several other threads without being interwoven with them, in a woven fabric.

(01 Mar 1998)