different between floater vs gloater

English

Etymology

float +? -er

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?fl??.t?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?flo?.t??/
• Rhymes: -??t?(r)

Noun

floater (plural floaters)

1. Agent noun of float; one who or that which floats.
2. An employee of a company who does not have fixed tasks to do but fills in wherever needed, usually when someone else is away.
3. (sports) An unaffiliated player.
4. (politics) A voter who shifts from party to party, especially one whose vote can be purchased.
5. (politics, US) A person, such as a delegate to a convention or a member of a legislature, who represents an irregular constituency, such as one formed by a union of the voters of two counties neither of which has a number sufficient to be allowed a (or an extra) representative of its own.
6. (US, politics) One who votes illegally in various polling places or election districts, either under false registration made by himself or under the name of some properly registered person who has not already voted.
7. An "extra" male at a dinner party, or a young friend of the hostess, whose assignment is to entertain the female guests.
8. A threadlike speck in the visual field that seems to move, possibly caused by degeneration of the vitreous humour.
9. A small suet dumpling put into soup.
   • 2011, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, The Fallen Kings

     About an hour later a ration lorry found them, and the men were woken again, this time to a good meal of bully stew and floaters – suet dumplings – followed by cold rice pudding with jam.

10. (police jargon) A corpse floating in a body of water.
    • 2017, E. J. Stauffer, The Drowning

      A dock worker saw him floating against a dock pier and called the police. Condition of the body they thought a floater that had been hit by a boat and cut by the prop.

11. (vulgar) A piece of faeces that floats.

    He left a floater in the toilet.

12. (slang, by extension) Someone who attaches themselves to a group of people, much to the dismay of that group, and repeatedly shows up to participate in group activities despite attempts to get rid of, or “flush,” that person.
13. (insurance) A policy covering property at more than one location or which may be in transit.
14. (finance) A floating rate bond.
15. (surfing) A maneuver in which a surfer transitions above the unbroken face of the wave onto the lip, or on top of the breaking section of the wave.
16. (two-up) A coin which does not spin when thrown in the air.
    • 1998, Queensland government Casino Gaming Amendment Rule (No. 2) 1998 [1]

      'In this section "floater" means a spin in which at least 1 of the coins does not turn over in the air at least once.

17. (Australia) A pie floater.
18. (India) A sandal.
19. A kind of river mussel (genus Anodonta).
20. (prison slang) A book circulated between prisoners that is not part of the official prison library.
    • 1991, Michael Tippett, Those twentieth century blues: an autobiography (page 143)

      'Floaters' [i.e. unofficially circulated books] had also come into the prison: you could either find them in the library, or they would be given […]

    • 2000, Julian Broadhead, Laura Kerr, Prison Writing: A Collection of Fact, Fiction and Verse (page 9)

      His books were 'floaters', banned by the borstal, but copies were smuggled in and from wing to wing.

Derived terms

• pie floater

Translations

See also

• mote

Anagrams

• Laforte, floe rat, florate, refloat

English

Etymology

gloat +? -er

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -??t?(r)

Noun

gloater (plural gloaters)

1. One who gloats.

Anagrams

• gelator, legator