lightwood-knot floater
A vivid American dialectal expression from the South for a torrential downpour — rain so heavy it could float lightwood knots (the dense, resin-soaked heart of pine trees, famously heavy and difficult to move) off the ground.
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A vivid American dialectal expression from the South for a torrential downpour — rain so heavy it could float lightwood knots (the dense, resin-soaked heart of pine trees, famously heavy and difficult to move) off the ground. The phrase captures the hyperbolic Southern tradition of describing extreme weather.
It came down a regular lightwood-knot floater that afternoon, and the creek was over its banks by nightfall.
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(US, dialectal) A very heavy downpour of rain.
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(US, dialectal) A very heavy downpour of rain.
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A colorful piece of American dialectal slang for an exceptionally heavy downpour of rain — the kind that comes down in sheets and floods roads in minutes. 'Cob-floater' is vivid rural hyperbole: a rain so fierce it could float a corncob right off the field. You might hear it from older speakers in the Midwest or South when describing a proper gullywasher of a storm.
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A thing which floats.
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