"float someone's boat" meaning in English

See float someone's boat in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-float someone's boat.ogg [Australia] Forms: floats someone's boat [present, singular, third-person], floating someone's boat [participle, present], floated someone's boat [participle, past], floated someone's boat [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} float someone's boat (third-person singular simple present floats someone's boat, present participle floating someone's boat, simple past and past participle floated someone's boat)
  1. (slang) To interest or appeal to someone; to make someone happy. Tags: slang Categories (topical): Emotions Synonyms: melt someone's butter, tickle someone's fancy, turn someone's crank, be someone's cup of tea, butter someone's biscuit Derived forms: whatever floats your boat

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for float someone's boat meaning in English (2.5kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "floats someone's boat",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "floating someone's boat",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "floated someone's boat",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "floated someone's boat",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "float someone's boat (third-person singular simple present floats someone's boat, present participle floating someone's boat, simple past and past participle floated someone's boat)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Emotions",
          "orig": "en:Emotions",
          "parents": [
            "Mind",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "whatever floats your boat"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I invited Lily to join us, but horror films don't float her boat."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To interest or appeal to someone; to make someone happy."
      ],
      "id": "en-float_someone's_boat-en-verb-qKIwPWIG",
      "links": [
        [
          "interest",
          "interest"
        ],
        [
          "appeal",
          "appeal"
        ],
        [
          "happy",
          "happy"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang) To interest or appeal to someone; to make someone happy."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "melt someone's butter"
        },
        {
          "word": "tickle someone's fancy"
        },
        {
          "word": "turn someone's crank"
        },
        {
          "word": "be someone's cup of tea"
        },
        {
          "word": "butter someone's biscuit"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-float someone's boat.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/08/En-au-float_someone%27s_boat.ogg/En-au-float_someone%27s_boat.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/En-au-float_someone%27s_boat.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "float someone's boat"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "whatever floats your boat"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "floats someone's boat",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "floating someone's boat",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "floated someone's boat",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "floated someone's boat",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "float someone's boat (third-person singular simple present floats someone's boat, present participle floating someone's boat, simple past and past participle floated someone's boat)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English rhyming phrases",
        "English slang",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English verbs",
        "en:Emotions"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I invited Lily to join us, but horror films don't float her boat."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To interest or appeal to someone; to make someone happy."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "interest",
          "interest"
        ],
        [
          "appeal",
          "appeal"
        ],
        [
          "happy",
          "happy"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang) To interest or appeal to someone; to make someone happy."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-float someone's boat.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/08/En-au-float_someone%27s_boat.ogg/En-au-float_someone%27s_boat.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/En-au-float_someone%27s_boat.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "melt someone's butter"
    },
    {
      "word": "tickle someone's fancy"
    },
    {
      "word": "turn someone's crank"
    },
    {
      "word": "be someone's cup of tea"
    },
    {
      "word": "butter someone's biscuit"
    }
  ],
  "word": "float someone's boat"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.