- (n.) A passage driven or cut between shaft and shaft; a driftway; a small subterranean gallery; an adit or tunnel.
- (v.i.) 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.
- (n.) That which is driven, forced or urged along.
- (v.i.) To accumulate in heaps by the force of wind; to be driven into heaps; as, snow or sand drifts.
- (v.t.) To drive or carry, as currents do a floating body.
- (n.) A driving; a violent movement.
- (n.) The act or motion of drifting; the force which impels or drives; an overpowering influence or impulse.
- (v.i.) 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.
- (n.) Course or direction along which anything is driven; setting.
- (n.) Anything driven at random.
- (n.) A drove or flock, as of cattle, sheep, birds.
- (v.t.) To drive into heaps; as, a current of wind drifts snow or sand.
- (n.) 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; as, a drift of snow, of ice, of sand, and the like.
- (n.) The distance between the two blocks of a tackle.
- (n.) 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.
- (n.) In South Africa, a ford in a river.
- (n.) A deviation from the line of fire, peculiar to oblong projectiles.
- (v.t.) To enlarge or shape, as a hole, with a drift.
- (n.) The distance to which a vessel is carried off from her desired course by the wind, currents or other causes.
- (n.) 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.
- (a.) That causes drifting or that is drifted; movable by wind or currents; as, drift currents; drift ice; drift mud.
- (n.) A tool used in driving down compactly the composition contained in a rocket or like firework.
- (n.) 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.
- (n.) The distance through which a current flows in a given time.
- (n.) The horizontal thrust or pressure of an arch or vault upon the abutments.
- (n.) The angle which the line of a ship's motion makes with the meridian, in drifting.
- (n.) 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.
- (n.) 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.
- (n.) 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.
- (n.) 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's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
| APA | Webster's. (2011). drift. Retrieved September 22, 2026, from http://smartdefine.org/drift/definitions/2000576 |
| Chicago | Webster's. 2011. "drift" http://smartdefine.org/drift/definitions/2000576 (accessed September 22, 2026). |
| Harvard | Webster's 2011, drift, Smart Define, viewed 22 September, 2026, <http://smartdefine.org/drift/definitions/2000576>. |
| MLA | Webster's. "drift" 27 May 2011. Web. 22 September 2026. <http://smartdefine.org/drift/definitions/2000576> |