Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
Hide Quotations Hide Etymology
About this entry:
First published 1956 (SND Vol. IV). Includes material from the 1976 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
Quotation dates: 1743, 1795-1952
[0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0]
FLOAT, n., v. Also flot, †floath.
I. n. 1. Scum, esp. on a boiling pot of broth, jam, etc. (Sc. 1808 Jam.; Ayr. 1950). Deriv. flottie, “a flat basin in which milk is put to cream” (Per. 1915 Wilson L. Strathearn 247). †Phr. and comb.: (1) float-o-feet, the fat boiled from the legs of oxen (Bnff. 1866 Gregor D. Bnff. 224); (2) float-whey, flot —, a dish made by boiling whey, often with a little meal and milk, so as to form a soft floating curd (Cld. 1808 Jam., flot-; Rxb. 1923 Watson W.-B.). Float alone is also in use (Watson).(2) Ayr. 1822 Galt Entail vii.:
The float whey, which, in a large china punch bowl, graced the centre of the table, and supplied the place of jellies, tarts, tartlets, and puddings.Gsw. 1845 R. Husband Poems 61:
Fat kail and potatoes as naething they reckon, And cram wi' the float-whey and bread till they brust.Rxb. 1878 J. Thomson Life W. Thomson 31:
Plenty of . . . cheese, whey, float, bleery.Ags. 1896 J. Stirton Thrums and its Glens 100:
When young he was regaled with float whey and potatoes.
2. Mining: a sill or sheet of intrusive trap rock, lying roughly in the same plane as the surrounding strata (Sc. 1886 J. Barrowman Mining Terms 29; Ayr.9 1951).Gsw. 1920 Memoirs Geol. Survey Scot. 64:
Two or three thin “floats” or sills of teschenitic dolerite are intruded among the strata.Ayr. 1932 Econ. Geol. Ayr. Coalfields IV. 9:
In the Carboniferous rocks there are sills or “floats” of basic whinstone, volcanic necks, and dykes.
3. A flat spring cart without sides for light transport (Ork., ne.Sc., Bwk., Rnf., Ayr., Gall., Dmf., Rxb., Uls. 1952), freq. used for carrying a hay rick bodily to the stack (wm.Sc. 1952).wm.Sc. 1935 G. Blake Shipbuilders xi.:
Men oscillating between mendicancy and commerce with boxes of Russian matches on the pavements' edges, men selling briquettes from lined floats.Abd. 1952 Huntly Express (25 April):
A nomad of the White clan landed in Huntly with a convoy of six floats, each drawn by a pony and loaded with dishes, pots and pans, and the usual tink merchandise.
II. v. In vbl.n.: †1. floathing, a layer; 2. In pl. flottins, = float-whey above (Abd. 1825 Jam.; Abd.2 1943): 3. Attrib. in phr. floating flock, see quot. under Flee. v. 1, n.1, II. 10.1. Sc. 1743 R. Maxwell Select Trans. 185:
I first lay upon the Bars small Wood or Whins, than a Floathing of small Coals, then Stones . . . but in every Floathing . . . I make the Stones bigger and bigger.
Combs. (1) float-drove, herring-fishing by means of float-nets, cf. grund-drave s.v. Grund, n., 4. A. (7); (2) float-raip, the cork-rope in a herring-net (Kcd. 1972 Patterns in Folk-Speech (Wakelin) 20).(1) Bwk. 1795 Stat. Acc.1 III. 116:
Now they also fish for them [herrings] by a Float Drove.
