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:
The British Divers Marine Life Rescue, which specialises in the rescue and protection of marine wildlife, says extra volunteers are needed to assess, give first aid and refloat stranded animals.
From BBC ● Mar. 9, 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
I shall buy the Dolphin steam tug—I can get her on easy terms of payment—fill her with coal and stores, and go to Kent's Group in Bass's Straits, and try and refloat the Braybrook Castle.
From A Memory Of The Southern Seas 1904 by Becke, Louis
The charity said people sometimes caused harm by rolling dolphins repeatedly, sometimes breaking their fins which meant they could no longer be refloated, or they can put themselves in danger.
From BBC ● Mar. 9, 2026
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
Later Sunday and after a five-hour effort, the MSC Istanbul was refloated.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 5, 2023
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
Crews will have to remove all that before refloating the stationary ship and guiding it back into the Port of Baltimore.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 19, 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.
