The number of shares outstanding and available for trading by the public WordNet 3.0 & Open English WordNet

In the context of stock markets, the public float or free float represents the portion of shares of a corporation that are in the hands of public investors as opposed to locked-in shares held by promoters, company officers, controlling-interest investors, or governments. Wikipedia

The total number of shares publicly owned and available for trading, after subtracting restricted shares from the total outstanding shares Wikipedia Disambiguation

An offering of shares in a company (or units in a trust) to members of the public, normally followed by a listing on a stock exchange. Wiktionary

Finance: offering of shares to the public. Wiktionary (translation)

An estimate of the proportion of shares of a public company that are not held by large owners and that are not stock with sales restrictions. Wiktionary