floating point

Short definition from Wiktionary

Adjective

1. 1
   Of a number, written in two parts as a mantissa (also called significand, the value of the significant digits) and characteristic (order of magnitude / the power of a number base) e.g. 0.314159 × 10¹.
2. 2
   Of the internal representation of such a number as a pair of integers.
3. 3
   Alternative form of floating point.