Emily Dickinson Lexicon

floor (-s), n. [OE flor. NW says Welsh llawr, earth or ground and Ger. flur, field; NW also notes that ancient inhabitants of Europe had no floor in their huts but the ground.] (webplay: business, dust, early, ground, house, lower, room, sand, walk).

1. Flat wooden surface; bottom level in a room; smooth plane of boards covering the base of the interior of a building.
2. Ground; soil; earth; land; field [word play on flur in etymology.]
3. Base; [metonymy] bottom of an archive, repository, or storehouse; [fig.] mental and emotional depths.
4. [Fig.] bottom of a casket; burial place in the ground; earth surrounding a grave.
5. Bottom of a ship; bottom of a chest.
6. Platform in a theater; stage for performance.
7. Tier; level; story; [fig.] surface of the ocean; waves.
8. Foundation; groundwork in a court; [fig.] paved golden street of the kingdom of heaven.
9. Phrase. “Ground floor”: downward limit; lowest part; first story; substratum on which other parts are overlaid.