floor

floor [-s] n

OE flor. NW says Welsh llawr, earth or ground and Ger. flur, field; NW also notes that ancient inhabitants of Europe had no floor in their huts but the ground.

  1. Flat wooden surface; bottom level in a room; smooth plane of boards covering the base of the interior of a building.
  2. Soil; earth; land; field; kind of dirt; [word play on flur in etymology.]
  3. Base; [metonymy] bottom of an archive, repository, or storehouse; [fig.] mental and emotional depths.
  4. Ground; [fig.] casket; burial place; earth surrounding a grave.
  5. Bottom of a ship; interior downward surface of a chest.
  6. Platform in a theater; stage for performance.
  7. Tier; level; story; [fig.] surface of the ocean; waves.
  8. Foundation; groundwork in a court; [fig.] paved golden street of the kingdom of heaven.
  9. Phrase. “Ground floor”: downward limit; lowest part; first story; substratum on which other parts are overlaid.