floor

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /flɔː/, US /flɔːr/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English flor,^[2][3] inherited from Old English flōr (“floor, pavement, ground, bottom of a lake”),^[4][2] from Proto-Germanic *flōruz,^[4][2][5] the source also of Dutch vloer, Middle High German vluor (German Flur “field, meadow”) and Old Norse flórr “floor of a cow stall”.^[2][4] Outside Germanic it is cognate with Old Irish lár and Welsh llawr “ground, floor”,^[2][5] and with Latin plānus “level”, the source of plain;^[2][3] Etymonline takes it to Proto-Indo-European *pele- (“flat; to spread”).^[4] The verb is from the noun.^[2][4] The spelling floor is not recorded before about 1390.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old English flōr is found about 725 in Beowulf,^[2] and the OED's first example of the surface of a room is from about 888.^[6] The bottom of a lake or sea is a floor before 1000.^[6]

Semantic evolution

A level or story of a house is from the 1580s.^[4] In legislative assemblies the floor where members sit and speak, as opposed to the platform, is from 1774,^[4] hence to have the floor, “to have the right to speak”.^[7] The verb, “to furnish with a floor”, is from the early 15th century^[4] (implied in flooring in 1387).^[2] “To knock down to the floor” is from the 1640s,^[4][6] and the figurative “to puzzle, confound” is first recorded in Coleridge's Table Talk (1830).^[2][4] In mid-19th-century university slang to floor a paper was to do it thoroughly and successfully.^[4] Floor it, “to press hard on the accelerator”, is by 1986.^[4] Compounds include floor-plan (1794), floor-board (1787) and floor-walker (1862).^[4]

Timeline

• c. 725 – Old English flōr.^[2]
• 1387 – flooring.^[2]
• early 15th century – verb, to furnish with a floor.^[4]
• 1580s – a story of a building.^[4]
• 1640s – verb, to knock down.^[4]
• 1774 – the floor of an assembly.^[4]
• 1830 – verb, to puzzle, confound.^[2][4]
• 1986 – floor it.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The lower surface of a room, on which one walks.
2. A story or level of a building.
3. The bottom of the sea, a valley, a forest or other area.
4. The part of an assembly hall where members sit and speak; the right to speak there.
5. A lower limit, as of prices or wages.
6. An area used for a particular activity: the factory floor.

Verb

1. To provide with a floor.
2. To knock down.
3. To astonish or baffle.
4. To press (a car's accelerator) to the floor.

Word family

• floorer
• floored
• floorless

Related words

• flooring
• plain
• plane
• plan

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster