flotant

Old French flotant, (French flottant), present participle of floter (“to float”).

flotant (not comparable)

1. (heraldry) Represented as flying (fluttering) or floating mid-air or in water.

   a banner flotant

• floatant, flottant

flotant (plural flotants)

1. A mass of floating vegetation, especially on the waters of the Mississippi delta.
   • 1985, Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists. Midyear Meeting, Abstracts:

     ... (flotants) occur in abandoned distributaries and throughout the upper Mississippi Delta Plain. Flotants can be found in 3 settings : 1) an active or "live" flotant of various ages. 2) a flotant that is being transgressed by marine […]

   • 2007, Gulf of Mexico OCS Oil and Gas Lease Sales 2007-2012, Western Planning Area Sales 204, 207, 210, 215, and 218, Central Planning Area Sales 205, 206, 208, 213, 216, and 222: Environmental Impact Statement, page 14:

     ... flotants. Flotants generally occur in very low-energy environments. They are held together by surrounding shorelines and a weave of slowly deteriorating plant materials and living roots. Forested wetlands are not very common in […]

   • 2010, Quinta Scott, The Mississippi: A Visual Biography, University of Missouri Press, →ISBN:

     […] flotants, covered 75 percent of the western Terrebonne marshes. By 1998 thick-mat maidencane flotants had converted to fragile thin-mat floating marshes, vegetated in spikerush with no evidence as to why. Louisianans had lumped flotants […]

2. Alternative form of floatant

   Coordinate term: sinkant

   • 1993, James A. Casada, Modern Fly Fishing, →ISBN:

     ... flotants, sinking solutions, absorbent granules for drying flies, line cleaners and leader straighteners. Flotants, which are considered the most important, come in several forms. Spray containers are easy to use but they waste a […]

   • 2004 12, Malcolm Greenhalgh, Malcolm Greenhalgh and Denys Ovenden, The Flyfisher's Handbook: The Natural Foods of Trout and Grayling and Their Artificial Imitations, COCH Y BONDDU BOOKS, →ISBN, page 263:

     Flotants and Sinkants / When nymphing it is essential that the tip of the floating fly line floats, for this is a major indicator that a fish has taken the fly. Carry a small tub of grease (e.g. Mucelin) and if the tip of the fly […]

   • 2010 November 7, Tom Rosenbauer, The Orvis Encyclopedia of Fly Fishing: Your Ultimate A to Z Guide to Being a Better Angler, Thomas Nelson, →ISBN, page 77:

     ... flotants were homemade concoctions of paraffin with lighter fluid or carbon tetrachloride to keep the wax in suspension. Most fly flotants today are made with silicone, and it can either be dissolved in a quick-drying solvent, in […]

• floating island

• “flotant”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

flotant

1. gerund of flotar

flotant

1. present participle of floter

flotant m (oblique and nominative feminine singular flotant or flotante)

1. floating; that floats

• → English: flotant
• French: flottant

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (flotant, supplement)

Borrowed from French flottant.

• IPA^(key): /floˈtant/

flotant m or n (feminine singular flotantă, masculine plural flotanți, feminine and neuter plural flotante)

1. floating

   Synonym: plutitor