[f. FLOOR sb.1]
1. trans. To cover or furnish with a floor or floors, in various senses of the word; to pave. Also with over.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., II. 334.
| And tymber stronge enlace it for to abyde, | |
| Eke pave or floore it wele in somer tyde. |
c. 1520. Mem. Ripon (Surtees), III. 201. Flowryng the lofte per v dies.
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, xxxi. (1887), 114. The place where ye exercise, must haue his ground flowred so, as it be not offensiue to the body, as in wrastling not hard to fall on, in daunsing soft, and not slipperie.
1660. Pepys, Diary, 4 Sept. Looking over the joiners, flooring my dining-room.
1698. J. Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia, 226. [Persia is] floored with vast Sands pent in by the surrounding Sprouts of Taurus and Imaus continued hither.
1782. Cowper, Expostulation, 16.
| Whom fiery suns, that scorch the russet spice | |
| Of eastern groves, and oceans floor’d with ice. |
1807. Vancouver, Agric. Devon (1813), 473. The yard pitched with rough stones, and the feeding and sleeping place floored with flat stones; the eating place four inches about the yard, and the sleeping place four inches above that.
1833. Examiner, 442/2. The pit was floored over to the height of the stage.
1857. B. Taylor, Northern Trav., iii. (1858), 18. It was splendidly wooded with thick fir forests, floored with bright green moss.
b. To form, or serve as, the floor of.
1639. G. Daniel, Ecclus. i. 4.
| Who can account with nice Arithmeticke | |
| The Sands which floore the Sea? |
1854. J. D. Hooker, Himalayan Journals, II. xviii. 44. Everywhere immense boulders are scattered about, some of which are sixty feet long: their surfaces are water-worn into hollows, proving the river to have cut through nearly 300 feet of deposit, which once floored its valleys.
2. To bring to the floor or ground; to knock down in boxing; to bring down (game). To be floored (of a horseman): to have a fall.
1642. Lanc. Tracts (Chetham Soc.), 79. Then Captain Ashurst with some sixteen musketeers breake through a house, and shot awhile with good successe, and afterwards seeing them march up madly, commanded them all to shoote at once, and flore the enemie, if possible they could.
1811. Sporting Mag., XXXIX. Oct., 18. Crib followed him round the stage and did astonishing execution, and floored him with a blow of great lrength. Ibid. (1826), New Ser. XVII. Feb., 270. My friend was floored, and Mr. Leader (determined, I suppose, to be leader) rode over him, thoroughbred one and all.
1839. Col. Hawker, Diary (1893) II. 10. My wild swan, that I floored yesterday, which he rowed down and caught near where I shot him.
1866. F. Seebohm, Oxf. Reformers, iv. § 4. Whereupon the poor boy was forthwith floored then and there, and flogged as though he had committed sacrilege.
b. slang. (See quot.)
1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., Floor’d, a person who is so drunk, as to be incapable of standing, is said to be floor’d.
3. In various figurative uses. colloq.
a. To confound, nonplus; to flabbergast, puzzle. In schoolboy slang, To be or get floored: to grow confused, be at a loss, fail, break down.
1840. Ld. Beaconsfield, in Corr. w. Sister (1886), 158. My facts flabbergasted him, as well as Bowring’s champion, Hume, who was ludicrously floored.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, II. iv. ‘If you hadn’t been floored yourself now at first lesson, do you mean to say you wouldn’t have been with them?’ Ibid., II. v. ‘He’s never going to get floored.’
1886. Ruskin, Præterita, I. xi. 359. Being one day eagerly and admiringly congratulated by the whole class the moment we got into quad, on the consummate manner in which I had floored our tutor.
b. To overcome in any way; to beat, defeat, prove too much for. To floor the odds (see quot. 1893)
1827. Lytton, Pelham, xxx. It is very singular that you who play so much better should not have floored him yesterday evening.
1834. J. H. Newman, in Lett. (1891), II. 28. I am floored as to the professorship.
1836. Ld. Beaconsfield, in Corr. w. Sister (1886), 50. I was the only man who could floor O’Connell.
1882. Daily Tel., 16 Nov., 3/5. The odds were, nevertheless, floored from an unexpected quarter.
1893. Farmer, Slang, Floor (Racing). When a low-priced horse pulls off the event in the face of the betting, it is said to floor the odds.
c. To do thoroughly, get through (a piece of work) successfully. To floor a paper (Univ. slang): to answer every question in it.
1852. Bristed, 5 Years in Eng. Univ., I. 135 Our best Classic had not time to floor the paper.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., x. (1889), 83. I’ve nearly floored my little-go work.
d. To empty, finish (a bottle, etc.).
1836–48. B. D. Walsh, Aristoph. Acharnians, V. ii.
| You little golden things, let’s try | |
| And mix soft humid kisses—shall one? | |
| Give me a sweet one, dear, for I | |
| Was the first man that floored his gallon. |
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., xxiv. (1889), 228. I have a few bottles of old wine left; we may as well floor them: they won’t bear moving to a hall with their master.
e. intr. ? To commit a fatal blunder.
1835. J. H. Newman, Lett. (1891), II. 97. We floored so miserably at the Reformation, that, though the Church ground is defensible and true, yet the edge of truth is so fine that no plain man can see it.
† 4. trans. ‘To bring forward in argument, to table’ (Jam.). Obs.–1
a. 1687. M’Ward, Contendings (1723), 177. I know not what you mean,—or whom your Proposal, in its genuine sense, strikes against; save that you floor it, to fall on some, whom you mind to hit right or wrong.
5. To place upon (something) as a floor.
1871. Tylor, Prim. Cult., II. xiii. 68. The doctrine of a Heaven, floored upon a firmament, or placed in the upper air.
6. Art slang. To hang in the lowest row on the walls of a picture-gallery.
1884. American, VIII. 20 Sept., 376/2. That there is strict impartiality in the Walker Art Gallery is shown in the fact that one R. A. is ‘skied’ and another ‘floored.’
