floater
noun
Simple meaning
A person without a fixed or lasting affiliation, position.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
flohterSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfloʊtɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A person who physically floats in a gas or liquid.
figurative
A person without a fixed or lasting affiliation, position, or role.
An employee who is reassigned from job to job as needed
An employee of an organization who does not have fixed tasks to do but fills in wherever needed, usually when someone else is away; also, a short-term employee; a temporary, a temp.
A person who frequently changes where they live; a drifter, a vagrant.
An "extra" (male) guest at a party who is asked by the host to entertain the other (often female) guests.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A person who physically floats in a gas or liquid.
Used this way, floater is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use floater
- “Floaters seem to drift through the field of vision.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Be in motion due to some air or water current.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.