Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Drift   /drɪft/   Listen
Drift

noun
1.
A force that moves something along.  Synonyms: impetus, impulsion.
2.
The gradual departure from an intended course due to external influences (as a ship or plane).
3.
A process of linguistic change over a period of time.
4.
A large mass of material that is heaped up by the wind or by water currents.
5.
A general tendency to change (as of opinion).  Synonyms: movement, trend.  "A broad movement of the electorate to the right"
6.
The pervading meaning or tenor.  Synonym: purport.
7.
A horizontal (or nearly horizontal) passageway in a mine.  Synonyms: gallery, heading.
verb
(past & past part. drifted; pres. part. drifting)
1.
Be in motion due to some air or water current.  Synonyms: be adrift, blow, float.  "The boat drifted on the lake" , "The sailboat was adrift on the open sea" , "The shipwrecked boat drifted away from the shore"
2.
Wander from a direct course or at random.  Synonyms: err, stray.  "Don't drift from the set course"
3.
Move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment.  Synonyms: cast, ramble, range, roam, roll, rove, stray, swan, tramp, vagabond, wander.  "Roving vagabonds" , "The wandering Jew" , "The cattle roam across the prairie" , "The laborers drift from one town to the next" , "They rolled from town to town"
4.
Vary or move from a fixed point or course.
5.
Live unhurriedly, irresponsibly, or freely.  Synonym: freewheel.
6.
Move in an unhurried fashion.
7.
Cause to be carried by a current.
8.
Drive slowly and far afield for grazing.
9.
Be subject to fluctuation.
10.
Be piled up in banks or heaps by the force of wind or a current.  "Sand drifting like snow"



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Drift" Quotes from Famous Books



... living machine. The blind action of physical forces seemed inadequate. Thus the phenomena of life, which had been studied longer than any other phase of nature, continued to stand aloof from the rest and refused to fall into line with the general drift of thought. The living world seemed to give no promise of being included among natural phenomena, but still persisted in ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn

... structures she forms strata covering whole provinces, and builds up from the depths of the sea large islands, if not continents. There are, it is true, near the mouths of the great Siberian rivers which empty themselves into the Polar Sea, drift islands composed, in an incredibly large proportion, of the bones and tusks of elephants, mastodons, and other huge pachyderms, and many extensive caves in various parts of the world are half filled with the skeletons of quadrupeds, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... unescorted soundless, the Populace and Municipals stop him as a fugitive, are not unlike massacring him as a traitor; the National Assembly, consulted on the matter, gives him free egress as a nullity. Such an unstable 'drift-mould of Accident' is the substance of this lower world, for them that dwell in houses of clay; so, especially in hot regions and times, do the proudest palaces we build of it take wings, and become Sahara sand-palaces, spinning many ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... Mr. Judd he begs him to pay him a visit, saying that since Lyell's death he hardly ever gets a geological talk. His observations, made only a few years before his death, on the upright pebbles in the drift at Southampton, and discussed in a letter to Mr. Geikie, afford another instance. Again, in the letters to Dr. Dohrn, he shows how his interest in barnacles remained alive. I think it was all due to the vitality and persistence of ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... in November; and the snow lying four or five feet thick in the beaten road on the summit (in other parts the new drift was already deep), the air was piercing cold. But, the serenity of the night, and the grandeur of the road, with its impenetrable shadows, and deep glooms, and its sudden turns into the shining of the moon and its incessant roar of falling water, rendered the journey ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens


More quotes...



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org