Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Flotation

Flo·ta′tion (flō·tā′shŭn), n. [Cf. F. flottation a floating, flottaison water line, fr. flotter to float. See Flotilla.] 1. The act, process, or state of floating.

2. The science of floating bodies.

Center of flotation. (Shipbuilding) (a) The center of any given plane of flotation. (b) More commonly, the middle of the length of the load water line. Rankine. — Plane, or Line, of flotation, the plane or line in which the horizontal surface of a fluid cuts a body floating in it. See Bearing, n., 9 (c). — Surface of flotation (Shipbuilding), the imaginary surface which all the planes of flotation touch when a vessel rolls or pitches; the envelope of all such planes.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.