floor n also flooring for sense 1. For sense 3, EDD Sup ~ Sc, Kilkenny Lexicon.
   1 In boat-building, a straight piece of wood used to join the body-frame timbers across the bottom of the craft.
   T 43/8-64 The rule was that your fore-hook now was put together, an' the bottom piece we'd call the floor, an' the two pieces that come up an' shaped the side o' the boat was called the timbers. 1969 Nfld Qtly July, p. 19 Floors [are] curved wooden timbers joining two stuttles and extending transverse along the flat part of a boat's bottom. 1973 Decks Awash May, p. 28 The 'Flooring' is used to fasten the ends of the timbers.
   2 The horizontal surface of a 'fish-flake,' esp the thin poles resting on the vertical 'shores' and covered with boughs.
   P 143-74 The flake was a long table-like structure on which the fish were dried. Its foundation was made of longers. The 'floor', or bottom layer of the flake, was made of planks and covered with boughs. Longers were placed on the boughs at intervals of two feet, serving to prevent the boughs from blowing away as well as to mark off the 'lists' (spaces for drying the fish).
   3 Phr on the floor: in one's home.
   P 148-63 Only one child was allowed on the floor, a baby in the crawling stage. T 222-60 People use the expression 'on my floor' when they mean 'in my house.' I remember one time a woman telling me that her daughter's child was born on her floor.

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