AFLOAT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does afloat mean? 

• AFLOAT (adjective)
  The adjective AFLOAT has 3 senses:

1. aimlessly drifting

2. borne on the water; floating

3. covered with water

  Familiarity information: AFLOAT used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AFLOAT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Aimlessly drifting

Synonyms:

adrift; afloat; aimless; directionless; planless; rudderless; undirected

Similar:

purposeless (not evidencing any purpose or goal)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Borne on the water; floating

Similar:

adrift (afloat on the surface of a body of water)

floating (borne up by or suspended in a liquid)

waterborne (supported by water)

Antonym:

aground (stuck in a place where a ship can no longer float)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Covered with water

Synonyms:

afloat; awash; flooded; inundated; overflowing

Context example:

an overflowing tub

Similar:

full (containing as much or as many as is possible or normal)

 Context examples 

The glaciers flow out from land to the ocean, with their leading edges afloat on the seawater.

(West Antarctic Glacier loss appears unstoppable, NASA)

They was the roughest crew afloat, was Flint's; the devil himself would have been feared to go to sea with them.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Indeed, as I gazed at the heavy sea through which we were running, I doubted that there was a boat afloat.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

If a man had not a wife, he soon wants to be afloat again.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

If ever there was a perfect beauty afloat, she is one; and there she lays at Spithead, and anybody in England would take her for an eight-and-twenty.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

“Roddy, lad,” said he, after supper was over, “you’re getting a man now, and I suppose you will go afloat like the rest of us. You’re old enough to strap a dirk to your thigh.”

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In a similar anticipation of life afloat, and in the Bush, Mr. Micawber, instead of helping Mrs. Micawber and his eldest son and daughter to punch, in wine-glasses, which he might easily have done, for there was a shelf-full in the room, served it out to them in a series of villainous little tin pots; and I never saw him enjoy anything so much as drinking out of his own particular pint pot, and putting it in his pocket at the close of the evening.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The bay, as he remembered it, was magnificent, with water deep enough to accommodate the largest vessel afloat, and so safe that the South Pacific Directory recommended it to the best careening place for ships for hundreds of miles around.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Whatever money he might come into when his father died, whatever his share of the family property, it is, I dare say, all afloat, all employed in his stock, and so forth; and though, with diligence and good luck, he may be rich in time, it is next to impossible that he should have realised any thing yet.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Not but that I was afloat in a safe craft, for the Martinez was a new ferry-steamer, making her fourth or fifth trip on the run between Sausalito and San Francisco.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)