[syn: freewheel, drift]
6. move in an unhurried fashion;
- Example: "The unknown young man drifted among the invited guests"
7. cause to be carried by a current;
- Example: "drift the boats downstream"
8. drive slowly and far afield for grazing;
- Example: "drift the cattle herds westwards"
9. be subject to fluctuation;
- Example: "The stock market drifted upward"
10. be piled up in banks or heaps by the force of wind or a current;
- Example: "snow drifting several feet high"
- Example: "sand drifting like snow"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
adit \ad"it\ ([a^]d"[i^]t), n. [L. aditus, fr. adire, aditum, to
go to; ad + ire to go.]
1. An entrance or passage. Specifically: The nearly
horizontal opening by which a mine is entered, or by which
water and ores are carried away; -- called also drift
and tunnel.
[1913 Webster]
2. Admission; approach; access. [R.]
[1913 Webster]
Yourself and yours shall have
Free adit. --Tennyson.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Drift \Drift\, n. [From drive; akin to LG. & D. drift a
driving, Icel. drift snowdrift, Dan. drift, impulse, drove,
herd, pasture, common, G. trift pasturage, drove. See
Drive.]
1. A driving; a violent movement.
[1913 Webster]
The dragon drew him [self] away with drift of his
wings. --King
Alisaunder
(1332).
[1913 Webster]
2. The act or motion of drifting; the force which impels or
drives; an overpowering influence or impulse.
[1913 Webster]
A bad man, being under the drift of any passion,
will follow the impulse of it till something
interpose. --South.
[1913 Webster]
3. Course or direction along which anything is driven;
setting. "Our drift was south." --Hakluyt.
[1913 Webster]
4. The tendency of an act, argument, course of conduct, or
the like; object aimed at or intended; intention; hence,
also, import or meaning of a sentence or discourse; aim.
[1913 Webster]
He has made the drift of the whole poem a compliment
on his country in general. -- Addison.
[1913 Webster]
Now thou knowest my drift. --Sir W.
Scott.
[1913 Webster]
5. That which is driven, forced, or urged along; as:
(a) Anything driven at random. "Some log . . . a useless
drift." --Dryden.
(b) A mass of matter which has been driven or forced
onward together in a body, or thrown together in a
heap, etc., esp. by wind or water; as, a drift of
snow, of ice, of sand, and the like.
[1913 Webster]
Drifts of rising dust involve the sky. -- Pope.
[1913 Webster]
We got the brig a good bed in the rushing drift
[of ice]. --Kane.
(c) A drove or flock, as of cattle, sheep, birds. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
Cattle coming over the bridge (with their great
drift doing much damage to the high ways). --
Fuller.
[1913 Webster]
6. (Arch.) The horizontal thrust or pressure of an arch or
vault upon the abutments. [R.] --Knight.
[1913 Webster]
7. (Geol.) A collection of loose earth and rocks, or
boulders, which have been distributed over large portions
of the earth's surface, especially in latitudes north of
forty degrees, by the agency of ice.
[1913 Webster]
8. In South Africa, a ford in a river.
[1913 Webster]
9. (Mech.) A slightly tapered tool of steel for enlarging or
shaping a hole in metal, by being forced or driven into or
through it; a broach.
[1913 Webster]
10. (Mil.)
(a) A tool used in driving down compactly the composition
contained in a rocket, or like firework.
(b) A deviation from the line of fire, peculiar to oblong
projectiles.
[1913 Webster]
11. (Mining) A passage driven or cut between shaft and shaft;
a driftway; a small subterranean gallery; an adit or
tunnel.
[1913 Webster]
12. (Naut.)
(a) The distance through which a current flows in a given
time.
(b) The angle which the line of a ship's motion makes
with the meridian, in drifting.
(c) The distance to which a vessel is carried off from
her desired course by the wind, currents, or other
causes.
(d) The place in a deep-waisted vessel where the sheer is
raised and the rail is cut off, and usually
terminated with a scroll, or driftpiece.
(e) The distance between the two blocks of a tackle.
[1913 Webster]
13. The difference between the size of a bolt and the hole
into which it is driven, or between the circumference of
a hoop and that of the mast on which it is to be driven.
[1913 Webster]
14. (Phys. Geog.) One of the slower movements of oceanic
circulation; a general tendency of the water, subject to
occasional or frequent diversion or reversal by the wind;
as, the easterly drift of the North Pacific.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
15. (A["e]ronautics) The horizontal component of the pressure
of the air on the sustaining surfaces of a flying
machine. The lift is the corresponding vertical
component, which sustains the machine in the air.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
Note: Drift is used also either adjectively or as the first
part of a compound. See Drift, a.
[1913 Webster]
Drift of the forest (O. Eng. Law), an examination or view
of the cattle in a forest, in order to see whose they are,
whether they are commonable, and to determine whether or
not the forest is surcharged. --Burrill. [1913 Webster]
continental drift (Geology), the very slow (ca. 1-5 cm per
year) movement of the continents and parts of continents
relative to each other and to the points of upwelling of
magma in the viscous layers beneath the continents; --
causing, for example, the opening of the South Atlantic
Ocean by the movement of Africa and South America away
from each other. See also plate tectonics.
[PJC]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Drift \Drift\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Drifted; p. pr. & vb. n.
Drifting.]
1. To float or be driven along by, or as by, a current of
water or air; as, the ship drifted astern; a raft drifted
ashore; the balloon drifts slowly east.
[1913 Webster]
We drifted o'er the harbor bar. -- Coleridge.
[1913 Webster]
2. To accumulate in heaps by the force of wind; to be driven
into heaps; as, snow or sand drifts.
[1913 Webster]
3. (mining) to make a drift; to examine a vein or ledge for
the purpose of ascertaining the presence of metals or
ores; to follow a vein; to prospect. [U.S.]
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Drift \Drift\, v. t.
1. To drive or carry, as currents do a floating body. --J. H.
Newman.
[1913 Webster]
2. To drive into heaps; as, a current of wind drifts snow or
sand.
[1913 Webster]
3. (Mach.) To enlarge or shape, as a hole, with a drift.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Drift \Drift\, a.
That causes drifting or that is drifted; movable by wind or
currents; as, drift currents; drift ice; drift mud. --Kane.
[1913 Webster]
Drift anchor. See Sea anchor, and also Drag sail, under
Drag, n.
Drift epoch (Geol.), the glacial epoch.
Drift net, a kind of fishing net.
Drift sail. Same as Drag sail. See under Drag, n.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
drift
n 1: a force that moves something along [syn: drift,
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); "not openly
liberal but that is the trend of the book"; "a broad movement
of the electorate to the right" [syn: drift, trend,
movement]
6: the pervading meaning or tenor; "caught the general drift of
the conversation" [syn: drift, purport]
7: a horizontal (or nearly horizontal) passageway in a mine;
"they dug a drift parallel with the vein" [syn: drift,
heading, gallery]
v 1: be in motion due to some air or water current; "The leaves
were blowing in the wind"; "the boat drifted on the lake";
"The sailboat was adrift on the open sea"; "the shipwrecked
boat drifted away from the shore" [syn: float, drift,
be adrift, blow]
2: wander from a direct course or at random; "The child strayed
from the path and her parents lost sight of her"; "don't
drift from the set course" [syn: stray, err, drift]
3: move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in
search of food or employment; "The gypsies roamed the woods";
"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" [syn: roll,
wander, swan, stray, tramp, roam, cast, ramble,
rove, range, drift, vagabond]
4: vary or move from a fixed point or course; "stock prices are
drifting higher"
5: live unhurriedly, irresponsibly, or freely; "My son drifted
around for years in California before going to law school"
[syn: freewheel, drift]
6: move in an unhurried fashion; "The unknown young man drifted
among the invited guests"
7: cause to be carried by a current; "drift the boats
downstream"
8: drive slowly and far afield for grazing; "drift the cattle
herds westwards"
9: be subject to fluctuation; "The stock market drifted upward"
10: be piled up in banks or heaps by the force of wind or a
current; "snow drifting several feet high"; "sand drifting
like snow"
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
430 Moby Thesaurus words for "drift":
Brownian movement, Zeitgeist, aberrancy, aberration, accumulation,
advance, aeroplane, affective meaning, affluence, afflux,
affluxion, aim, airlift, airplane, alluvion, alluvium, amble,
angular motion, anthill, army, array, ascending, ascent,
atmospherics, axial motion, azimuth, backflowing, backing,
backward motion, balloon, bank, bank up, bat, bat around, batch,
be a sideliner, be airborne, be still, bear off, bearing, bend,
bent, bias, blaring, blasting, blind spot, branching off, bum,
bunch, bundle, career, circuitousness, climbing, clump, cluster,
clutch, coast, cock, colony, color, coloring, concourse,
confluence, conflux, connotation, consequence, corner, count ties,
course, crawling, creeping, crook, crosscurrent, cruise, current,
curve, dance, dart, debris, declination, defluxion, delay,
denotation, departure, deposit, descending, descent, detour,
detritus, deviance, deviancy, deviation, deviousness, digression,
diluvium, direction, direction line, discursion, disposition,
divagate, divagation, divarication, divergence, diversion,
do nothing, dogleg, double, downflow, downpour, downward motion,
drift off course, driftage, drifting, drive, drove, dune, ebbing,
effect, embankment, err, errantry, essence, excurse, excursion,
excursus, exorbitation, extension, fade-out, fading, fall down,
ferry, fetch away, flicker, flight, flit, flitter, float, flock,
flood, flow, flowing, fluency, flutter, flux, fly, foot, force,
forward motion, gad, gad about, gallivant, gam, gang, ghost, gist,
glacial movement, glide, go about, go astray, go the rounds,
grammatical meaning, group, gush, hairpin, hang fire, haycock,
haymow, hayrick, haystack, heading, heap, heap up, helmsmanship,
herd, hibernate, hill, hit the road, hit the trail, hobo, hop,
host, hover, hydroplane, idea, idle, impact, implication, import,
inclination, inclining, indirection, inflow, intension, intent,
intention, interference, jaunt, jet, kennel, knock about,
knock around, lay, leeway, lexical meaning, lie, lie dormant, line,
line of direction, line of march, linger, literal meaning, litter,
loess, lot, main current, mainstream, make leeway, mass, maunder,
meander, meaning, mill run, millrace, molehill, mooch, mope,
moraine, mosey, motion, mound, mountain, mounting, movement, mow,
muck, navigate, navigation, noise, nomadize, not budge, not stir,
object, oblique motion, obliquity, ongoing, onrush, onward course,
orientation, outflow, overtone, pack, parcel, partiality, passage,
pay off, penchant, peregrinate, pererrate, pererration, pertinence,
pile, pile up, piloting, pith, plow the deep, plunging, pod, point,
practical consequence, predilection, pride, progress, progression,
propensity, prowl, purport, purpose, pyramid, quarter, race,
radial motion, ramble, rambling, random motion, range,
range of meaning, real meaning, reception, reference, referent,
reflowing, refluence, reflux, regression, relation, relevance,
rest, retrogression, rick, ride, ride the sea, rising, roam, rove,
run, run about, rush, sag, sail, sailplane, saunter, school, scope,
scree, scud, seaplane, sediment, semantic cluster, semantic field,
sense, set, sheer, shift, shifting, shifting course, shifting path,
shoal, shock, shoot, sideward motion, significance, signification,
significatum, signifie, silt, sinking, sinter, sit back,
sit it out, skew, skim, skulk, slant, slip, sloth, snake,
snowdrift, soar, soaring, span of meaning, spate, spirit, stack,
stack up, stagnate, static, steerage, steering, sternway, straggle,
stray, straying, stream, stroll, structural meaning, subsiding,
substance, sum, sum and substance, surge, sweep, swerve, swerving,
swing, swinging, symbolic meaning, tack, take it easy,
take the air, take wing, tendency, tenor, the general tendency,
the main course, tide, time spirit, tone, totality of associations,
track, traipse, traject, trajet, tramp, transferred meaning, trend,
trip, troop, turn, turning, twist, twist and turn,
unadorned meaning, undercurrent, undertone, undertow,
upward motion, vagabond, vagabondize, value, variation, veer,
vegetate, volplane, waft, wait and see, walk the tracks,
walk the waters, wander, wandering, warp, wash, watch and wait,
water flow, way, wayfare, wind, wing, yaw, yaw off, zigzag