whatever floats your boat
whatever floats your boat phrase: one should do whatever stimulates one or suits one's inclinations.
Phrase
whatever floats your boat
- One should do whatever stimulates one or suits one's inclinations.
- You can achieve a non-ordinary or altered state with drugs, drumming, dancing, fasting, meditation, whatever floats your boat—floats it into the beyond, that is.2025 May 17, James Parker, “Return of the Shaman”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN
- You can fill your life with love / You can fill your life with owt / You can fill your lifе with food and drink / Or whatever floats your boat2025, “The Hymn of the North”, in Jarvis Cocker (lyrics), More, performed by Pulp
- Synonyms:
- whatever butters your biscuit, whatever butters your biscuits, whatever butters your bread, whatever butters your muffin, whatever butters your toast, whatever humps your camel, whatever melts your butter, whatever sizzles your bacon, whatever tickles your pickle, whatever winds your clock
Synonyms of whatever floats your boat
Origin of whatever floats your boat
The earliest evidence hints that the phrase originated in the late 1970s among pleasure boaters in the United States.
Questions about whatever floats your boat
- What does whatever floats your boat mean?
- Whatever floats your boat means one should do whatever stimulates one or suits one's inclinations.
- What part of speech is whatever floats your boat?
- Whatever floats your boat is a phrase.
Words near whatever floats your boat in the dictionary
- whatever butters your biscuits
- whatever butters your bread
- whatever butters your muffin
- whatever butters your toast
- whatever creams your twinkie
- whatever floats your boat
- whatever happens, happens
- whatever helps you sleep at night
- whatever humps your camel
- whatever it takes
- whatever melts your butter
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: whatever floats your boat (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-whatever floats your boat.ogg.
Cite this entry: “whatever floats your boat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whatever_floats_your_boat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.