floater

n. a person who files down or smooths horse teeth; a tool used for such a task. Subjects: English, Animals, Insects, & Birds, Horses

Etymological Note: Directly related to the verb “to float,” meaning “to file the teeth of a horse.” The Oxford English Dictionary includes a single 1886 citation supporting this specific sense of the verb, but the more general meaning, “to render smooth or level,” is dated to at least as early as 1703. Another specific sense, “to level (the surface of plaster) with a ‘float,’” does tentatively support a connection between the horse “float” and the plaster “float,” as mentioned in the 1982 citation.

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Citations: 1969 Mrs. G.E. Finney @ advertisement Daily Times (Salisbury, Maryland) (June 13) “Auction of Horse Trailer and Racing Equipment” p. 24: I will sell the following belonging to my late husband.…Tooth floater and gag. 1982 Ellen Barlett @ Davie, Florida Washington Post (Dec. 1) “Horse dentist floats around in a stable job” p. D1: Verts doesn’t consider himself a doctor, anyway. He’s a horse floater, one who “floats,” or files down, teeth. Some say floaters got their name from their partiality to drifting about the country. Others think they were named for the similarity of their hardware to the flat-faced tools—floats—used for finishing concrete. 2004 RegAlert (Feb. 20) “Texas—Proposed—Racing Commission—16 TAC 311”: The fee for an occupational license is as follows:…Tooth Floater $75. 2006 [Re`al "Buill" Oney] My Moody Indigo! p. 81: Doc Ellers was very pleased, as he presented me with a set of old horse teeth floaters. He told me they worked much better than the new contraptions. He was eighty. 2006 Charley Shaw St. Paul Legal Ledger (Minnesota) (Aug. 21) “Something to chew on from MN chapter of the Institute for Justice”: Chris Johnson just wants to float horse teeth again, and he’s getting help from the Minnesota chapter of the Institute for Justice. The group filed a lawsuit last week against the Minnesota Board of Veterinary Medicine on behalf of Johnson, a Hutchinson man who is barred from filing down the teeth of horses, a procedure called floating.…Johnson, 37, is a third generation horse teeth floater who began learning the practice from his father in 2004. 2007 Peggy O’Neill Billings Gazette (Montana) (Aug. 29) “Horse aficionado draws fans to book fictionalizing history”: “Tooth floater” is another term for a horse dentist, a trade he practices during the winters in Florida.

Posted 29 Aug 07 | Permalink | Tell a Friend

Reader comments:

Why is the rasp to file a horse’s teeth called a “float”?

by Kelly Roach 05 Oct 07, 0313 GMT