In economics, float is duplicate money present in the banking system during the time between a deposit being made in the recipient's account and the money being deducted from the sender's account. It can be used as investable asset, but makes up the smallest part of the money supply. Float affects the amount of currency available to trade and countries can manipulate the worth of their currency by restricting or expanding the amount of float available to trade.
"Float is money in the banking system that is counted twice, for a brief time, because of delays in processing checks", as defined by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
It is most obvious in the time delay between a cheque being written and the funds to cover that cheque being deducted from the payer's account. Once the payee or recipient of a cheque deposits it in a bank account, the bank provisionally credits the account credits and thus increases the payee's account in demand deposit, assuming that the payer's bank will ultimately send the funds to cover the cheque. Until the payer's bank actually sends the funds, both payer and payee have the "same" money in both of their accounts. Once the payee's bank notifies the payer's bank by presenting the cheques, the "duplicate" funds will be removed from the payer's account, and the cheques will be considered to have "cleared" the bank.
A woodworking float, also called a planemaker's float, is a tapered, flat, single cut file of two types: edge float and the flat sided float which are traditional woodworking tools generally used when making a wooden plane. The float is used to cut, flatten, and smooth (or float) key areas of wood by abrasion. Despite the name its woodworking uses go well beyond planemaking.
Floats are similar to rasps and files. Rasps are generally coarse and cannot be resharpened. Files have angled ridges or teeth and cannot be resharpened. Floats have parallel teeth and they can be resharpened as many times as the thickness of the blade will allow.
Edge floats resemble saw blades and are generally used to cut wedge slots in wood. Flat sided floats are more similar to a file or rasp but their cutting edges are a series of parallel teeth.