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• floating point
  floating point

  noun

  a decimal point whose location is not fixed, used especially in computer operations.
• floating-point
  floating-point

  Relating to a method of representing numerical quantities that uses two sets of integers, a mantissa and a characteristic, in which the value of the number is understood to be equal to the mantissa multiplied by a base (often 10) raised to the power of the characteristic. Scientific notation is one means of displaying floating-point numbers.

floating point

American  

noun

1. a decimal point whose location is not fixed, used especially in computer operations.

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floating-point Scientific  

/ flō′tĭng-point′ /

1. Relating to a method of representing numerical quantities that uses two sets of integers, a mantissa and a characteristic, in which the value of the number is understood to be equal to the mantissa multiplied by a base (often 10) raised to the power of the characteristic. Scientific notation is one means of displaying floating-point numbers.

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Example Sentences

At a supercomputing conference in Germany on Monday, Intel said its forthcoming "Falcon Shores" chip will have 288 gigabytes of memory and support 8-bit floating point computation.

From Reuters • May 22, 2023

Nvidia says an H100 GPU is three times faster than its previous-generation A100 at FP16, FP32, and FP64 compute, and six times faster at 8-bit floating point math.

From The Verge • Mar. 22, 2022

The effect is of a floating point of view that narrows and widens, both deeply rendered and impossible to pin down.

From Los Angeles Times • May 20, 2021

A 64-bit floating point number representing the horizontal velocity of the rocket with respect to the platform was converted to a 16-bit signed integer, so there were 48 fewer number places.

From Slate • Oct. 31, 2019

The magazine containing retorts of specially prepared gas, for recharging the envelope when evaporation and leakage had reduced the volume below the lifting and floating point, was nowhere in sight.

From Paths of Glory Impressions of War Written at and Near the Front by Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)