Floater

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Floater \Float"er\, n.
     1. One who floats or swims.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. A float for indicating the height of a liquid surface.
        [1913 Webster]


  
     3. (Politics)
        (a) A voter who shifts from party to party, esp. one whose
            vote is purchasable. [U. S.]
        (b) A person, as a delegate to a convention or a member of
            a legislature, who represents an irregular
            constituency, as one formed by a union of the voters
            of two counties neither of which has a number
            sufficient to be allowed a (or an extra)
            representative of its own. [U. S.]
        (c) A person who votes illegally in various polling places
            or election districts, either under false registration
            made by himself or under the name of some properly
            registered person who has not already voted. [U. S.]
            [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  floater
       n 1: spots before the eyes caused by opaque cell fragments in the
            vitreous humor and lens [syn: {musca volitans}, {muscae
            volitantes}, {spots}]
       2: a debt instrument with a variable interest rate tied to some
          other interest rate (e.g. the rate paid by T-bills)
       3: a wanderer who has no established residence or visible means
          of support [syn: {vagrant}, {drifter}, {vagabond}]
       4: an employee who is reassigned from job to job as needed
       5: a voter who votes illegally at different polling places in
          the same election
       6: a swimmer who floats in the water
       7: an object that floats or is capable of floating
       8: an insurance policy covering loss of movable property (e.g.
          jewelry) regardless of its location [syn: {floating policy}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  47 Moby Thesaurus words for "floater":
     Ahasuerus, Ancient Mariner, Argonaut, Flying Dutchman, Goliard,
     Odysseus, Oisin, Ossian, Ulysses, ballot-box stuffer, balloter,
     bird of passage, bum, derelict, drifter, elector, fraudulent voter,
     gad, gadabout, go-about, hobo, itinerant, mover, peregrinator,
     peregrine, peripatetic, proxy, rambler, registered voter, repeater,
     roamer, rolling stone, rover, runabout, straggler, street arab,
     stroller, strolling player, tramp, troubadour, vag, vagrant,
     visitant, voter, wanderer, wandering minstrel, wandering scholar