To floor a paper, lesson, examination, examiner, etc., verb. phr.
(university).—To answer every question; to master; to prove oneself
superior to the occasion.
1852. Bristed, Five Years in an English University, p. 12. Somehow
I nearly floored the paper.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford. I’ve floored my Little Go.
To floor one’s licks, verb. phr. (common).—To surpass one’s self; to
cut-around (q.v.).
1844. Puck, p. 14. Now slowly rising, raised his pewter and floored
his licks.
To have, hold, or take the floor, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To rise to
address a public meeting; in Ireland, to stand up to dance; and, in
America, ‘to be in possession of the House.’
1882. McCabe, New York, xxi., p. 342. A member making a bid below
or an offer above the one which has the floor.
1888. St. Louis Globe-Democrat. After a half hour’s recess Mr.
Glover took the floor.
1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 11 Nov., p. 6, col. 1. The Duke of
Rutland, however, who ‘took the floor’ non-politically at the end
of the evening, was really ‘felicitous’ in his few remarks.
Floored, ppl. adj. (colloquial).—1. Vanquished; brought under; ruined.
For synonyms, see Dead-beat and infra.
English Synonyms.—Basketted; bitched; bitched-up; bowled out; broken
up; buggered up; busted; caved in; choked-off; cornered; cooked;
coopered up; dead-beat; done brown; done for; done on toast; doubled
up; flattened-out; fluffed; flummoxed; frummagemmed; gapped; gone
through St. Peter’s needle; gone under; gravelled; gruelled; hoofed
out; in the last of pea-time, or last run of shad; jacked-up; knocked
out of time; knocked silly; looed; mucked-out; petered out; pocketed;
potted; put in his little bed; queered in his pitch; rantanned; sat
upon; sewn up; shut-up; smashed to smithereens; snashed; snuffed out;
spread-eagled; struck of a heap; stumped; tied up; timbered; treed;
trumped; up a tree.
French Synonyms.—Mon linge est lavé (pop.: = I have thrown up the
sponge); coller sous bande (= to put in a hole: at billiards, bande =
cushion); avoir son affaire (pop: = to have got a ‘settler’); aplatir
(fam: = to flatten out); aplomber (thieves’: = to brazen down; to
bluff); être pris dans la balancine (pop.: = to be in a fix); se faire
coller (familiar); envoyer quelqu’un s’asseoir, or s’asseoir sur
quelqu’un (popular).
Italian Synonym.—Traboccare (= to overturn).
Spanish Synonyms.—Pesado (doubled-up: from peso = weight); aculado
(from acular = to corner); arrollar (= to sweep away, as a torrent);
aturrullar (= to shut up); cogite! (= ‘I’ve got you.’ or, ‘there I have
you!’)
2. (common).—Drunk; in Shakspearean ‘put down’: as Sir Andrew
Aguecheek, ‘Never in your life, I think, unless you see Canary put me
down.’ (Twelfth Night, i., 3). For synonyms, see Screwed.
3. (painters’).—Hung low at an exhibition; in contradistinction to
skyed (q.v.), and on the line (q.v.).
Floorer, subs. (common).—1. An auctioneer (q.v.); or knock-down blow;
cf., Dig, Bang, and Wipe. Hence, sudden or unpleasant news; a decisive
argument; an unanswerable retort; a decisive check. Sp., peso.
1819. T. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 20. For in these fancy
times, ’tis your hits in the muns, And your choppers and floorers
that govern the funds.
1839. Swinton, Trial of Wm. Humphreys, p. 297. It is a downright
floorer to the Grown.
1856. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green.
The Putney Pet stared.... The inquiry for his college was, in the
language of his profession, a ‘regular floorers.’
1861. H. C. Pennell, Puck on Pegasus, p. 20. What a floorers to my
hopes is this performance on the ropes! Miss Marianne suspensa
scalis—(Would twere sus. per coll instead).
1868. Cassell’s Magazine, 4 Jan., p. 213. ‘Ah, she hasn’t told you
of the strokes I have had, one arter the other—clean floorers, and
left like a log of wood in my bed.’