A floppy disk, diskette, or floppy diskette is a type of disk storage made from a thin, flexible disk coated with a magnetic storage medium. It is enclosed in a square or nearly square plastic shell lined with fabric to help remove dust from the spinning disk.
soft and easily bent; not able to maintain a firm shape or position: a floppy hat a dog with big, floppy ears (Definition of floppy from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)
IBM began selling floppy disk drives in 1971 and received US patents for the drive and floppy disk in 1972. The floppy disk made it possible to easily load software and updates onto mainframe computers and quickly became the most widely used storage medium for small systems.
A floppy drive is a magnetic medium that stores and reads data on the floppy disk using a read head. When a 3.5" floppy diskette is inserted into the drive, the metal slide door is opened to expose the inner magnetic disk.
Floppy disks or diskettes emerged around 1970 and, for a good three decades or so, they were the main way many people stored and backed up their computer data.
Obsolete, but not gone: The people who won't give up floppy disks - BBC
A floppy disk is a detachable, flexible magnetic storage device that may hold computer files or other electronic data. It is composed of a flexible and thin magnetic storage disk that is enclosed inside a rectangular plastic carrier that has a fabric lining for increased sturdiness.
Floppy disk, magnetic storage medium used with late 20th-century computers. It was supplanted by the increasing use of e-mail attachments and other means to transfer files from computer to computer.