floc
/flɒk/noun, verb
floc is a noun meaning “A floccule; a soft or fluffy particle suspended in a liquid, or the fluffy mass of suspended particles so formed” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-L-O-C and has one syllable, and it appears about once in every 18 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of floc is flocs.
What does floc mean?
noun
- 1
A floccule; a soft or fluffy particle suspended in a liquid, or the fluffy mass of suspended particles so formed.
- 2
informalA flocculant, as used in swimming pools to make particles clump together so they are trapped by the filter.
verb
- 1
informalTo use a flocculant in (a swimming pool).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce floc?
- /flɒk/
Floc has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of floc
- flocs plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- flocc
- floccing participle, present
- flocced participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is floc?
Floc appears about once in every 18 million words in written English, the 127,184th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Words people confuse with floc
Sounds like: flock (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Where does floc come from?
From Latin floccus (“tuft of wool”), or from French floc (“floc”), from the same Latin source.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).