drift
/dɹɪft/ noun B2- Anything driven at random.
- A mass of matter which has been driven or forced onward together in a body, or thrown together in a heap, etc., especially by wind or water. · a drift of snow, of ice, of sand, of plants, etc.
- The distance through which a current flows in a given time.
- The animals being moved in a drive, as of cattle, goats, horses, pigs or sheep.
- A group of birds moving together.
- 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 retreat of continental glaciers, such as that which buries former river valleys and creates young river valleys.
- A collection of logs floating down a river.
- Driftwood included in flotsam washed up onto the beach.
Plural drifts
Phrasal verbs and expressions
From the library
Holmes’s face was turned towards it, and he muttered impatiently as he watched its sluggish drift.
At this rate the flat would fill and sink long before it could drift to the lower headland.
The girls had discovered that if the flat were pushed off from the landing place it would drift down with the current under the bridge and finally strand itself on another headland lower down which ran out at a curve in the pond.
“We were playing Elaine,” explained Anne frigidly, without even looking at her rescuer, “and I had to drift down to Camelot in the barge--I mean the flat.
Other matches
Learn drift in real texts
With a free account, hover any word in the library for its meaning, hear it read aloud, save words for review timed to your memory, and see how much of each book you already know.