Refloat
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The process of getting something to float again.
"A small crowd on the docks watched the attempted refloat of the ship."
- 1 To cause to float again. transitive
"Removing fuel from the sunken ship will make it easier to refloat it."
- 2 set afloat again wordnet
- 3 To float again. intransitive
"2025, Chloe Hughes, Boat stranded on canal hole edge pulled to safety (BBC News) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c79x0vqvnq4o Overnight, water was pumped into dammed sections created by the Canal and River Trust on Tuesday, and as of 06:00 on Wednesday, water levels were recovering. "This means that one of the boats near to the breach site, plus six further up the canal, are now beginning to refloat," it [the council] said."
Example
More examples"Removing fuel from the sunken ship will make it easier to refloat it."
Etymology
From re- + float.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.