refloat
Americanverb (used with object)
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to put (a boat or a beached whale) back into the water.
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to reintroduce or re-establish (an idea, project, business, etc.), often on a new or better footing.
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to issue again.
Other Word Forms
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
They will attempt to refloat the whales this afternoon, but time is tight.
From BBC ● Jan. 8, 2026
On the way back south, it spent four days unloading cargo from the Thamesborg, the vessel grounded in the Franklin Strait, to help refloat it before the onset of new ice.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 30, 2025
Last week, cleanup crews were able to refloat the Dali and guide it back to port.
From Seattle Times ● May 29, 2024
By 3:30 p.m. local time, rescue teams decided to euthanize the surviving animals “on welfare grounds,” after it was determined that rough waves and shallow beach conditions made it unsafe to refloat them.
From New York Times ● Jul. 17, 2023
The crew of the submarine made great efforts to refloat the vessel, but were unsuccessful.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, August 8, 1917 by Various
It was only barely refloated by rescue vessels before new ice formed, which would have trapped it over winter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 30, 2025
The whales were refloated by lifting them on sheets.
From BBC ● Nov. 25, 2024
The demolition will allow the Dali to be refloated and guided back into the port.
From Seattle Times ● May 13, 2024
Treasury Department sanctions being refloated in Indonesia is filled with Venezuelan fuel, according to vessel monitoring services.
From Reuters ● Nov. 10, 2022
Blue Team’s sixteen lost ships, which were lying at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, were refloated.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
New recruits get to practise refloating an animal of that size using a life-sized two tonne replica pilot whale, which is filled with air and water.
From BBC ● Mar. 9, 2026
“It presents a dynamic hazard,” said Joseph Farrell, CEO of Resolve Marine, which is working on refloating the ship.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 15, 2024
But with a backlog that had grown to over 300 vessels waiting to transit the canal, the refloating was not the end of the affair.
From New York Times ● Jul. 7, 2021
Eslam Negm, 33, who worked on its salvage efforts, said the success in refloating the ship in March made him “feel like I was a part of something huge.”
From Washington Post ● Jul. 7, 2021
Along the banks logs grounded, and were rolled over by their own momentum into places so shallow as to discourage any hope of refloating them unless by main strength.
From The Riverman by White, Stewart Edward
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
