floater n. a person who files down or smooths horse teeth; a tool used for such a task. Etymological Note: Directly related to the verb “to float,” meaning “to file the teeth of a horse.” The Oxford English Dictionary includes a single 1886 citation supporting this specific sense of the verb, but the more general meaning, “to render smooth or level,” is dated to at least as early as 1703. Another specific sense, “to level (the surface of plaster) with a ‘float,’” does tentatively support a connection between the horse “float” and the plaster “float,” as mentioned in the 1982 citation. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...
Why is the rasp to file a horse’s teeth called a “float”?