floor meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

floor

noun

UK /flɔː/ · CA, US /floɹ/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English floor, floour, flor, flore, flour, flur, vlor, from Old English flōr (“floor, pavement; deck; gangplank”), from Proto-West Germanic *flōr, from Proto-Germanic *flōraz (“ground; floor”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂ros (“floor”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂- (“flat”). Cognates Cognate with Scots flair, fluir (“floor”), Saterland Frisian Floor (“floor”), Dutch vloer (“floor”), German Flur (“corridor, hall, hallway, stairwell”), Limburgish Vlǫǫr (“floor”), Low German Floor (“hallway or entrance to a house”), Luxembourgish Flouer (“countryside, farmland”); also Breton and Cornish leur (“floor, ground, surface”), Irish lár (“floor, ground”), Scottish Gaelic làr (“earth, floor, ground”), Manx laare (“bottom, deck, floor; level, storey”), Welsh llawr (“floor, ground”), Latin plānus (“even, flat, level”), Greek απαλάμη (apalámi), παλάμη (palámi, “hand, palm”), Albanian pëllëmbë (“palm”), Latgalian pluons (“thin”), Latvian plāns (“thin”), Lithuanian plonas (“fine, slender, thin”), Belarusian, Macedonian, Russian, and Ukrainian по́ле (póle, “field”), Bulgarian поле́ (polé, “field”), Czech, Polish, and Slovak pole (“field”), Serbo-Croatian по̏ље, pȍlje (“field”), Slovene polje (“field”), Hittite 𒁄𒄭𒅖 (palḫis, “broad, wide”). Related to flat.

19 senses

1The interior bottom or surface of a house or building…
2The bottom surface of a natural structure, entity, or…
3The ground.
4A structure formed of beams, girders, etc, with proper…
5The supporting surface or platform of a structure such…
6A storey/story of a building.
7In a parliament, the part of the house assigned to the…
8The right to speak at a given time during a debate or…
9That part of the bottom of a vessel on each side of the…
10A horizontal, flat ore body; the rock underlying a…
11The bottom of a pit, pothole or mine.
12The largest integer less than or equal to a given number.
13An event performed on a floor-like carpeted surface…
14A floor-like carpeted surface for performing gymnastic movements.
15A lower limit or minimum on a price or rate, a price…
16A dance floor.
17The trading floor of a stock exchange, pit; the area in…
18The area of a casino where gambling occurs.
19The area of an establishment where food and drink are…

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

The room has a wooden floor.
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:

Biology, Geography, Geology, Natural sciences With a modifier The bottom surface of a natural structure, entity, or space (e.g. cave, forest, ocean, desert, etc.); the ground (surface of the Earth).

The leaves covering the forest floor provide many hiding-places for small animals.
Many sunken ships rest on the ocean floor.

2 more examples

The floor of a cave served the refugees as a home.
The pit floor showed where a ring of post holes had been.

UK, Colloquial, Dialectal The ground.

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

Architecture, Business, Construction, Manufacturing A structure formed of beams, girders, etc, with proper covering, which divides a building horizontally into storeys/stories.

The supporting surface or platform of a structure such as a bridge.

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

Architecture A storey/story of a building.

For years we lived on the third floor.
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:

In a parliament, the part of the house assigned to the members, as opposed to the viewing gallery.

Broadly The right to speak at a given time during a debate or other public event.

Will the senator from Arizona yield the floor?
The mayor often gives a lobbyist the floor.

Nautical, Transport That part of the bottom of a vessel on each side of the keelson which is most nearly horizontal.

Business, Mining A horizontal, flat ore body; the rock underlying a stratified or nearly horizontal deposit.

Business, Mining The bottom of a pit, pothole or mine.

Mathematics, Sciences The largest integer less than or equal to a given number.

The floor of 4.5 is 4.

Gymnastics, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports An event performed on a floor-like carpeted surface; floor exercise

Gymnastics, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports A floor-like carpeted surface for performing gymnastic movements.

Business, Finance A lower limit or minimum on a price or rate, a price floor. Opposite of a cap or ceiling.

A dance floor.

She's a maniac, maniac on the floor / And she's dancing like she never danced before1983, "Maniac", Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky
Open the door, get on the floor / Everybody walk the dinosaur1987, "Walk the Dinosaur", Was (Not Was)

1 more example

Meet me on the floor tonight Show me how to move like the water2025 April 4, Ed Sheeran, Ilya Salmanzadeh, Johnny McDaid, Savan Kotecha, “Azizam”, in Play, performed by Ed Sheeran:

The trading floor of a stock exchange, pit; the area in which business is conducted at a convention or exhibition.

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:

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:

Synonyms: possession, floor, flooring, ground, flight
Antonyms: ceiling, roof
Derived terms: 136 terms
4-on-the-floor, back to the floor, barnfloor, cornfloor, cross the floor, dance floor, deck floor, drill floor, earth-floor, earth floor, first floor, floorage, floorball, floorboard, floor box, floor broker, floorcare, floorcest, floor cloth, floorcloth, floorcovering, floor cramp, floordrobe, floor effect, floorer, floor exercise, floor-filler, floorful, floor function, floor general, floorgrip, floorhand, floorhead, floor heating, floor hockey, floor it, floor lamp, floor-length, floorless, floorlet, floor light, floorlike, floorman, floor manager, floormat, floor mat, floormate, floor model, floor one could eat off, floorpan, floorperson, floor piano, floor plan, floor plan lending, floorplanning, floorplate, floor puzzle, floorset, floor show, floorshow, floorspace, floor space, floor temperature challenge, floor-through, floor tile, floortime, floor-to-ceiling, floor trader, floor-walker, floorwalking, floorward, floorwards, floorway, floorwise, floorwoman, floorwork, Four Floors of Whores, four-on-the-floor, four on the floor, four-to-the-floor, give the floor, ground-floor, ground floor, have the floor, hit the floor, hold the floor, house floor, killing floor, living floor, low-floor, malt floor, Marley floor, mezzanine floor, midfloor, mop the floor with someone, multifloor, nightingale floor, nonfloor, ocean floor, office floor plate, on the cutting room floor, on the floor, open floor plan, pelvic floor, pick oneself up off the floor, price floor, pull up a floor, refloor, rooted to the floor, sales floor, seafloor, sea-floor spreading, second floor, shiny-floor, shop floor, showfloor, skill floor, subfloor, summer floor, take the floor, tear up the dance floor, the floor is lava, thirteenth floor, thrashing floor, thrashing-floor, threshing floor, threshing-floor, through the floor, top floor, trading floor, underfloor, upfloor, valley floor, walk the floor, wipe the floor, wipe the floor with someone
Related terms: flooring, mezzanine, floorage, floorspace, straight-joint
Hyponyms: earth floor, hearth, nightingale floor, parquet, ground floor, first floor
Meronyms: deafening, floorboard, floorplate, joist, planching, plank, pugging, carpet, corticine, drugget, floor tile, floorcloth, floorcovering, linoleum, tatami, tile, underlay, vinyl composition tile, wood carpet, fire block, floor box, floor safe, trapdoor, wellhole

floor

verb

Etymology

8 senses

1To cover or furnish with a floor.
2To strike down or lay level with the floor; to knock down.
3To hang (a picture on exhibition) near the base of a…
4To push (a pedal) down to the floor, especially to accelerate.
5To silence by a conclusive answer or retort.
6To amaze or greatly surprise.
7To finish or make an end of.
8To set a lower bound.

To cover or furnish with a floor.

floor a house with pine boards
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:

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:

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

Slang To push (a pedal) down to the floor, especially to accelerate.

our driver floored the pedal
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

Informal To silence by a conclusive answer or retort.

floor an opponent
Floored or crushed by him.c. 1827-1833, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes on Hacket:

Informal To amaze or greatly surprise.

Usually passive voice

We were floored by his confession.
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:

Colloquial To finish or make an end of.

floor a college examination
I've floored my little-go work1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], Tom Brown at Oxford: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, →OCLC:

Mathematics, Sciences To set a lower bound.

floored division

floor

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