floating-point

adjective

float·​ing-point ˈflō-tiŋ-ˌpȯint 

variants or floating point

mathematics

: using or involving a notation in which a number is represented as a number with an absolute value between 1 and the base (see base entry 1 sense 4e(2)) multiplied by a power of the number base indicated by an exponent (as in 4.52E2 for 452 in base 10)

A floating point operation requires at least several thousand elementary binary operations.

—Geoffrey Murray

If a simple operation like multiplying floating-point numbers would require a set of instructions, then a procedure of any useful scale would involve putting many such sets of instructions together.

—Andrew Hodges

compare fixed-point, scientific notation

Examples of floating-point in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The bill applies only to models trained with more than 10^26 floating-point operations or with a compute cost above $100 million. — Jason Snyder, Forbes.com, 24 May 2026

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), China has achieved 1,882 exaflops – short for exa floating-point operations per second – which translates to 1,882 quintillion, or billion billion, calculations per second, reported SCMP. — Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 23 Apr. 2026

Total computational resources in the economy could eventually reach 10⁵⁴ floating-point operations per second. — Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 4 Apr. 2026

In parallel with the development of DSP2, Jim led a new architecture, DSP32, which used floating-point arithmetic. — IEEE Spectrum, 30 June 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1948, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for floating-point

• counterpoint
• disappoint
• multipoint
• needlepoint
• reappoint
• adjoint
• anoint
• appoint
• checkpoint
• conjoint
• disjoint
• endpoint

Kids Definition

floating-point

adjective

: involving or being a system of representing numbers (as in computer programming) in which a quantity is written as a number multiplied by a power of that number's base

999.9 can be expressed in a floating-point system as 9.999 × 10²