| floating | 1. Buoyed upon or in a fluid; a, the floating timbers of a wreck; floating motes in the air. 2. Free or lose from the usual attachment; as, the floating ribs in man and some other animals. 3. Not funded; not fixed, invested, or determined; as, floating capital; a floating debt. "Trade was at an end. Floating capital had been withdrawn in great masses from the island. <medicine>" (Macaulay) Floating anchor See Dock. Floating harbor, a breakwater of cages or booms, anchored and fastened together, and used as a protection to ships riding at anchor to leeward. <botany> Floating heart, threads which span several other threads without being interwoven with them, in a woven fabric. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
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| floating cartilage | A loose piece of cartilage within a joint cavity, detached from the articular cartilage or from a meniscus. Synonym: loose cartilage. (05 Mar 2000) |
| floating kidney | The abnormally mobile kidney in nephroptosia. Synonym: movable kidney, wandering kidney. (05 Mar 2000) |
| floating organ | An organ with loose attachments, permitting its displacement. Synonym: floating organ, ptotic organ. (05 Mar 2000) |
| floating patella | A patella riding high on effusion of the knee. (05 Mar 2000) |
| floating ribs | The two lower ribs on either side that are not attached anteriorly. Synonym: costae fluitantes, costae fluctuantes, vertebral ribs. (05 Mar 2000) |
| floating spleen | A spleen that is palpable because of excessive mobility from a relaxed or lengthened pedicle rather than because of enlargement. Synonym: lien mobilis, movable spleen. (05 Mar 2000) |
| floating villus | A chorionic villus that is not attached to the decidua basalis, but is "free" in the maternal blood of the intervillous spaces. Synonym: floating villus. (05 Mar 2000) |
| free-floating anxiety | In psychoanalysis, a pervasive unrealistic expectation unattached to a clearly formulated concept or object of fear; observed particularly in anxiety neurosis and may be seen in some cases of latent schizophrenia. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Adson forceps | A small thumb forceps with two teeth on one tip and one tooth on the other. (05 Mar 2000) |
| alligator forceps | A long forceps with a small hinged jaw on the end. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Allis forceps | A straight grasping forceps with serrated jaws, used to forcibly grasp or retract tissues or structures. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Arruga's forceps | Forceps for the intracapsular extraction of a cataract. (05 Mar 2000) |
| arterial forceps | A locking forceps with sloping blades for grasping the end of a blood vessel until a ligature is applied. (05 Mar 2000) |
| axis-traction forceps | Obstetrical forceps provided with a second handle so attached that traction can be made in the line in which the head must move in the axis of the pelvis. (05 Mar 2000) |