Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Drift |
DriftNoun1. A force that moves something along. 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. Something heaped up by the wind or current. 5. A general tendency as of opinion: "not openly liberal but that is the tendency of the book". 6. General meaning or tenor: "caught the drift of the conversation". 7. (mining) a horizontal (or nearly horizontal) passageway in a mine; "they dug a drift parallel with the vein". Verb1. 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". 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". 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". 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". 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". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "drift" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references) |
Etymology: Drift \Drift\, noun. [From drive; akin to Low German & Dutch drift a driving, Icelandic drift snowdrift, Danish drift, impulse, drove, herd, pasture, common, German trift pasturage, drove. See Drive.]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Mechanical Engineering | Only correct sizes of chucks appropriate to the bar diameter should be used in the bending machine, and it is most important to avoid rebending. Source: European Union. (references) |
Aerospace | 1. The lateral divergence from the prescribed flight path of an aircraft, a rocket, or the like, due primarily to the effect of a crosswind. 2. A slow movement in one direction of an instrument pointer or other marker. 3. A slow change in frequency of a radio transmitter. 4. The angular deviation of the spin axis of a gyro from a fixed reference in space.5. In semiconductors, the movement of carriers in an electric field. (references) |
Computing | The unwanted change of the value of an output signal of a device over a specified period of time when the values of all input signals of the device are kept constant. Source: European Union. (references) |
Food & Agriculture | Slash, brushwood, etc. concentrated along a line, so as to clear the intervening ground(the stroll=lane)between two of them, as for windrow planting. Source: European Union. (references) |
| The natural movement of livestock over a range, i. e. uninfluenced by direct human action. Source: European Union. (references) | |
| Timber out of control in water. Source: European Union. (references) | |
Geography | A lateral displacement of an aerial photograph parallel to the flight line, due to failure of the aircraft to follow the prescribed flight line. Source: European Union. (references) |
| Superficial, as distinct from consolidated, formations of the earth's crust, which have been transported from the site of weathering. Source: European Union. (references) | |
Mechanical Engineering | Deviation of a hole from the intended path, e. g. , because of heterogeneities in the workpiece. Source: European Union. (references) |
Military & Defense | In ballistics, a shift in projectile direction due to gyroscopic action which results from gravitational and atmospheric induced torques on the spinning projectile. Source: European Union. (references) |
Mining | A. An entry, generally on the slope of a hill, usually driven horizontally into a coal seam. Syn:surface b. The deviation of a borehole from its intended direction or target. CF:walk c. A general term, used esp. in Great Britain, for all surficial, unconsolidated rock debris transported from one place and deposited in another, and distinguished from solid bedrock; e.g., specif. for glacial deposits. Any surface movement of loose incoherent material by the wind; accumulated in a mass or piled up in heaps by the action of wind or water. See also:fill d. Apparent offset of aerial photographs with respect to the true flight line, caused by the displacement of the aircraft owing to cross winds, and by failure to orient the camera to compensate for the angle between the flight line and the direction of the aircraft's heading. The photograph edges remain parallel to the intended flight line, but the aircraft itself drifts farther and farther from that line e.g., specif. for glacial deposits. Any surface movement of loose incoherent material by the wind; accumulated in a mass or piled up in heaps by the action of wind or water. See also:fill d. Apparent offset of aerial photographs with respect to th f. A horizontal opening in or near an orebody and parallel to the course of the vein or the long dimension of the orebody g. A passageway driven in the coal from the surface, usually above drainage, following the inclination of the bed h. Forest of Dean. A hard shale. i. To make a drift; to drive j. A horizontal gallery in mining and civil engineering driven from one underground working place to another and parallel to the strike of the ore. It is usually of a relatively small cross section. Larger sections are usually called tunnels. (references) |
Nuclear Energy & Physics | Water carried out of a cooling tower in mist or small droplet form. Usually expressed as a percentage of the circulating water rate. Source: European Union. (references) |
Personal Care & Hotels | The water droplets entrained from a water spray device by air movement. Source: European Union. (references) |
Physics | Slow movement of the image which is caused by mains interference in the d. c. supply circuitry and which is reduced by careful screening and positioning of the components. Source: European Union. (references) |
| The change of a condition with time under steady state operating conditions. Source: European Union. (references) | |
Public Administration | Uncontrolled displacement of a floating or submerged object. Source: European Union. (references) |
Space | A magnetically trapped ion or electron moves as if it were attached to a magnetic field line. Drift is one of the features of such motion, namely its slow shift from one guiding field line to its neighbor. In the Earth´s magnetic field, such drifts gradually move particles all the way around Earth. Viewed from far above the north magnetic pole, ions drift around the Earth clockwise, electrons counter-clockwise, resulting in an electric current circling the Earth, the ring current. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The concept of Continental drift was first proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1912 considering the apparent way that continents on either side of the Atlantic Ocean seem to fit jigsaw-like together (for example Africa and South America). The similarity of Southern continent fossil faunas and some geological formations had led a relatively small number of Southern hemisphere geologists to conjecture as early as 1900 that all the continents had once been joined into a supercontinent. The concept was initially ridiculed by most geologists, lacking an explanation as to how continents could in fact move. The idea of continental drift did not become widely accepted as theory until the 1950's in Europe. By the 1960's geological research conducted by Robert Dietz, Bruce Heezen, and Harry Hess led to acceptance among North American geologists.The Theory of Continental Drift is a part of the concept of plate tectonics. Continents have been drifting for hundreds of millions of years. Through convection, heat flows from the Earth's core to its crust. As the asthenosphere is plastic, the brittle lithosphere floatss along these convection currents.
Various Data
South America and Africa are moving apart at 3 cm per year, due to the seafloor spreading along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
Evidence for continental drift
Evidence for continental drift is now extensive, in the form of plant and animal fossils of the same age found around different continent shores, suggesting that these shores were once joined. For example the fossils of the freshwater crocodile found in Brazil and South Africa. Another illustrative example is the discovery of fossils of the aquatic reptile Lystrosaurus from rocks of the same age from locations in South America, Africa, and Antarctica. There is also living evidence - the same animals being found on two continents. An example of this is a particular earthworm found in South America and South Africa.
There exist two main forms of more geological evidence evident: rock sequences and magnetic stripes. When the rock strata of the tips of separate continents are very similar it suggests that these rocks were formed in the same way implying that they were joined initially. For instance, some parts of Scotland contain rocks very similar to those found in eastern North America. The second piece of evidence arises when the rocks were formed from magma erupting out of a volcano. When this happens the iron particles align with the earth's magnetic field and set in this position. As the earth's magnetic field flips every half-million years, strips of land of alternating magnetic orientation are formed - symmetrical from the volcano. This showed how some plates are moving away from each other.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Continental drift."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
In telecommunication, a drift is a comparatively long-term change in an attribute or value of a system or equipment operational parameter.Note 1: The drift should be characterized, such as "diurnal frequency drift" and "output level drift."
Note 2: Drift is usually undesirable and unidirectional, but may be bidirectional, cyclic, or of such long-term duration and low excursion rate as to be negligible.
Source: from Federal Standard 1037C and from MIL-STD-188
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Drift."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Genetic drift is a mechanism of evolution that acts in concert with natural selection to change species characteristics over time. Like selection, it acts on populations, altering which traits and which alleles predominate among members and changing the diversity of the group. Unlike selection, however, drift occurs only in small populations and results in changes that need not be adaptive. A statistical effect, it arises from the role of chance in the production of offspring.Reproduction is affected by chance because no trait dictates exactly to what age an individual survives or how many offspring he, she or it produces. Even when an organism inherits "perfect genes"--that is, all the alleles most associated with success or fitness--still an individual may be buried in an avalanche, frozen by a frost or caught in an awkward moment by a foe. By the time their moment comes, some individuals produce more offspring and some produce fewer. As a result, at best a trait confers a superior average reproductivity to the group of individuals that carry it.
Because individuals vary, however, group averages may vary too, especially groups with few members. And when the variation is in reproductivity, the transmission of group traits from one generation to the next can become disproportionate to the size of the group, causing the prevalence of traits to rise or fall. A chance trend in these deviations over successive generations is called drift. Persistent drift causes an allele to either disappear from the gene pool or to supplant all other copies of a gene. This is one of the risks that population bottlenecks pose to genetic diversity.
Law of large numbers
Small populations' greater susceptibility to drift is a manifestation of the law of large numbers, which is especially easy to see in tossing coins. On average, of course, coins turn up heads or tails equally. Yet just a few tosses in a row are unlikely to produce heads and tails in equal number. The numbers are no more likely to be exactly equal for a large number of tosses in a row, but the inequality can be very small in percentage terms. As an example, ten tosses turn up 70% heads about once in every six tries. The chance of the same imbalance from a hundred tosses in a row is only about one in 25,000. Big deviations from average reproductivity, similarly, happen more frequently in small populations than in large ones. As a result, the smaller the population, the faster they drift.
Sex cells and chance
Beyond its influence on sheer numbers of offspring, chance affects the reproduction of sexual species in yet another way. Sperm and eggs each contain only half the amount of genetic material an offspring inherits at conception. The material in each half is selected somewhat haphazardly from the complete set of material that each parent carries. This random selection occurs during crossing over of the chromosomes when sex cells are produced.
In a narrow sense the random aspect is inconsequential, because every individual produces millions of sperm or eggs. If a diploid individual carries two versions of a gene, then each allele will be present in very nearly exactly half of their sex cells--because the number of cells is so large. But individuals produce few offspring, and the number produced by a group of genetically alike individuals may not be close to a million either. As a result, sexual reproduction can lead to a disproportionate transmission of alleles from one generation to the next, especially when the offspring population is small.
Adaptive, neutral, and deleterious traits
Drift and natural selection are capable of acting in parallel, even on the same traits. At the same time as a disease, a predator or another selective pressure is predisposing individuals with adaptive traits to a higher rate of reproduction than their peers, runs of luck may enhance or oppose this tendency. Even the fittest will vary in reproductivity from one generation to the next, and whenever an advantageous allele diminishes in prevalence, it's a neutral or even deleterious allele that takes up the slack.
The ability to affect the prevalence of even neutral traits distinguishes drift from selection. As a result, theorists often appeal to drift to account for evolutionary changes that might have paved a way for adaptations, and yet offered no obvious immediate advantage. Yet while aiding in explanation, drift also creates a challenging ambiguity. How does one know whether a trait shared by every member of a species--yellow spots, for example--represents an adaptation to selective conditions, or instead represents just an accident? Not only can it be difficult to say, the answer may be "a little bit of both."
Teasing apart the relative influence that drift and selection have had over the course of evolution, both with respect to individual species as well as with regard to the history of life in general, is a primary aim of evolutionary biology.
Population genetics perspective
From the statistical perspective of population genetics, drift is a "sampling effect". A chance over-production or under-production of offspring compared to the average represents what statisticians call a sampling error. According to this perspective, the frequency distribution of alleles among a population of offspring (how many carriers there are of each allele) reflects a sampling of the alleles of the preceding generation. When the alleles of a gene do not differ with regard to fitness, on average the number of carrieres in one generation is proportional to the number of carriers in the last. But the average is never tallied, because each generation parents the next one only once. Therefore the frequency of an allele among the offspring often differs from its frequency in the preceding generation.
Many sources of mortality, such as infectious diseases for which no immunity exists, may be regarded as randomly sampling a population. In other words, they randomly select some proportion of individuals for death. Because the sample is random, on average alleles are picked in proportion to how common they are. But because the sample size, the population size and the number of carriers of an allele are finite, deviations from the average or mean often occur. To the extent that the upward and downward deviations over successive generations do not exactly balance out, an allele drifts.
Drifting alleles are liable to disappear all together from the gene pool. When the number of individuals who carry an allele drifts to zero, so that no individuals are left to reproduce it, it disappears forever. Similarly, if all but one of the alleles for a given gene disappears, the proportion of individuals who carry it will never stray from 100%. That is, until in at least one individual a spontaneous mutation or other genetic change affects that carrier's allele. It is also possible in principle for such a change to reintroduce an allele that has disappeared from the gene pool.
When drift comes into play
Population bottlenecks, Founder's effect etc.
Other sources of chance and variability
The principle of independent assortment may also be involved in drift. According to this principle, during gamete formation many traits combine randomly. Thus, an individual may inherit alleles that increase fitness along with alleles that are neutral (that neither increase nor decrease fitness). Natural selection favors the alleles that increase fitness, but the associated neutral alleles will also increase in frequency, as an accidental byproduct.
Examples
Chance acts on allele frequency in a variety of ways. Perhaps the most obvious input is lifespan. For example, imagine a collision between a car and a bus. If the collision was caused by the fact that the driver of the car had poor vision, that driver's death might be an example of natural selection. But for the driver and passengers of the bus, death was random. If these people died before reproducing, their death would alter the frequency of their genes in the subsequent generation. In other words, even when individuals are equally fit, they will differ in their success. Simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the death of some and the survival of others can change the distribution of alleles in a population, and thus be a force in its evolution. "Differential morbidity" is the most important cause of drift in populations of asexual (or "clonal") organisms, and it is an important cause of drift in populations of sexual organisms as well.
See also
- Small population size
- Evolution
- Hardy-Weinberg principle
- Population genetics
- Neutral theory of evolution
- Sewall Wright
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Genetic drift."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Plate tectonics (from the Greek for "builder", tekton) is a theory of geology developed to explain the phenomenon of continental drift. In the theory of plate tectonics the outermost part of the Earth's interior is made up of two layers, the outer lithosphere and the inner asthenosphere. Plate tectonic theory arose out of two separate geological observations: seafloor spreading and continental drift.
Key principles
The division of the Earth's interior into lithospheric and asthenospheric components is based on their mechanical differences. The lithosphere is cooler and more rigid, whilst the asthenosphere is hotter and mechanically weaker. This division should not be confused with the chemical subdivision of the Earth into (from innermost to outermost) core, mantle and crust.The key principle of plate tectonics is that the lithosphere exists as separate and distinct tectonic plates, which "float" on the fluid-like asthenosphere. Due to convective currents in the asthenosphere, the tectonic plates undergo motion in different directions. The point where one plate meets another is known as a plate boundary and these areas are commonly associated with geological events such as earthquakes and the creation of topographic features like mountains, volcanoes and oceanic trenches. Plate boundaries are the home of the majority of the world's active volcanoes with the Pacific Plate's Ring of Fire being most active and famous. These zones are discussed in further detail below.
Tectonic plates are broadly divisible into two groups: continental and oceanic plates. The distinction is based on the density of their constituent materials; oceanic plates are denser than continental plates due to their greater mafic mineral content. As a result, the oceanic plates generally lie below sea level, while the continental plates project above sea level (see isostasy for explanation of this principle, which is essentially a large-scale version of Archimedes' Bath).
Types of plate boundary
The different types of plate boundary are:
- Transform boundaries occur where plates slide, or perhaps more accurately grind, past each other along transform-faults. The relative motion of the two plates is therefore either sinistral or dextral.
- Divergent boundaries occur where two plates slide apart from each other,
- Convergent boundaries (or active margins) occur where two plates slide towards each other commonly forming either a subduction zone (if one plate moves underneath the other) or an orogenic belt (if the two simply collide and compress).
- Plate boundary zones occur in more complex situations where three or more plates meet and exhibit a mixture of the above three boundary types.
Transform boundaries
The left- or right-lateral motion of one plate against another along transform or strike slip faults can cause highly visible surface effects. Because of friction, the plates cannot simply glide past each other. Rather, stress builds up in both plates and when it reaches a level that exceeds the slipping-point of rocks on either side of the transform-faults the accumulated potential energy is released as strain, or motion along the fault. The massive amounts of energy that are released are the cause of earthquakes, a common phenomenon along transform boundaries.A good example of this type of plate boundary is the San Andreas Fault complex, which is found in the western coast of North America and is one part of a highly complex system of faults in this area. At this location, the Pacific and North American plates move relative to each other such that the Pacific plate is moving North with respect to North America.
Divergent boundaries
At divergent boundaries, two plates move apart from each other and the space that this creates is filled with new crustal material sourced from molten magma that forms below. The driving force that moves the plates apart is not fully understood. Two theories are the ridge-push and slab-pull hypotheses. In the former, upwelling convective currents in the mantle bring hot material close to the Earth's surface. As it reaches shallow levels it starts to melt and is expelled at the divergent boundary, thus forcing the plates apart. The second hypothesis suggests that, if one end of a plate is being subducted at a convergent boundary, the downgoing slab of material will exert a stress on the other end, thus pulling it away.The genesis of divergent boundaries is sometimes thought to be associated with the phenomenon known as hotspots. Here, exceedingly large convective cells bring very large quantities of hot asthenospheric material near the surface and the kinetic energy is though to be sufficient to break apart the lithosphere. The hot spot believed to have created the Mid-Atlantic Ridge system currently underlies Iceland which is widening at a rate of a few centimetres per century.
Divergent boundaries are typified in oceanic lithosphere by the rifts of the oceanic ridge system, including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and, in continentental lithosphere by rift valleys such as the famous East-African Rift. Divergent boundaries can create massive fault zones in the oceanic ridge system. Spreading is generally not uniform, so where spreading rates of adjacent ridge blocks are different massive transform faults occur. These are the Fracture Zones, many bearing names, that are a major source of submarine earthquakes. A sea floor map will show a rather strange pattern of blocky structures that are separated by linear features perpendicular to the ridge axis. If one views the sea floor between the fracture zones as conveyor belts carrying the ridge on each side of the rift away from the spreading center the action becomes clear. Crest depths of the old ridges, parallel to the current spreading center, will be older and deeper (due to thermal contraction and subsidence).
It is at mid-ocearn ridges that one of the key pieces of evidence forcing acceptance of the sea-floor spreading hypothesis was found. Airborne geomagnetic surveys showed a strange pattern of symmetrical magnetic reversals on opposite sides of ridge centres. The pattern was far too regular to be coincidental as the widths of the opposing bands were too closely matched. Scientists had been studying polar reversals and the link was made. The magnetic banding directly corresponds with the Earth's polar reversals. This was confirmed by measuring the ages of the rocks within each band. In reality the banding furnishes a map in time and space of both spreading rate and polar reversals.
Convergent boundaries
The nature of a convergent boundary depends on the type of lithosphere in the plates that are colliding. Where a dense oceanic plate collides with a less-dense continental plate, the oceanic plate is typically thrust underneath, forming a subduction zone. At the surface, the topographic expression is commonly an oceanic trench on the oceanic side, and a mountain range on the continental side.An example of a continental-oceanic subduction zone is the area along the western coast of South America where the oceanic Nazca plate is being suducted beneath the continental South American Plate. Where two continental plates collide, the effect is for the plates to crumple and compress, creating extensive mountain ranges, such as is occurring at the Indian and Eurasian plate-boundary with the Himalaya.
History and Impact
Continental drift was first proposed in 1912 by Alfred Wegener who noticed the similarity in shape of the coasts of Africa and South America. His ideas were not taken seriously by geologists who pointed out that there was no mechanism for continental drift.This changed radically in the 1960's, and was prompted by a number of discoveries, most notably the Mid-Atlantic ridge. The acceptance of the theories of continental drift and sea floor spreading (the two key elements of plate tectonics) can be compared to the Copernican revolution in astronomy (see Nicolaus Copernicus). Within a matter of only several years geophysics and geology in specific were revolutionized.
The parallel is striking: just as Pre Copernican astronomy was highly descriptive but still able to make predictions, pre-tectonic plate geological theories described what was observed but struggled to provide any fundamental mechanisms. The problem lay in the question "how?". Before acceptance of plate tectonics, geology in particular was trapped in a 'pre-Copernican' box.
However, by comparison to astronomy the geological revolution was much more sudden. What had been rejected for decades by any respectable scientific journal was eagerly accepted within a few short years in the 1960s and 1970s. Any geological description before this had been highly descriptive. All the rocks were described and assorted reasons, sometimes in excruciating detail, were given for why they were where they are. The descriptions are still valid. The reasons, however, today sound much like pre-Copernican astronomy.
One simply has to read the pre-plate descriptions of why the Alps or Himalaya exist to see the difference. In an attempt to answer "how" questions like "How can rocks that are clearly marine in origin exist thousands of meters above sea-level in the Dolomites?", or "How did the convex and concave margins of the Alpine chain form?", any true insight was hidden by complexity that boiled down to technical jargon without much fundamental insight as to the underlying mechanics.
With plate tectonics answers quickly fell into place or a path to the answer became clear. Collisions of converging plates had the force to lift sea floor into thin atmospheres. The cause of marine trenches oddly placed just off island arcs or continents and their associated volcanoes became clear when the processes of subduction at converging plates were understood.
Mysteries were no longer mysteries. Forests of complex and obtuse answers were swept away. Why were there striking parallels in the geology of parts of Africa and South America? Why did Africa and South America look strangely like two pieces that should fit to anyone having done a jigsaw puzzle? Look at some pre tectonics explanations for complexity. For simplicity and one that explained a great deal more look at plate tectonics. A great rift valley, like the one now on the other side of Africa, had split into the Atlantic--and was still at work.
We have inherited some of the old terminology, but the underlying concept is as radical and simple as "The Earth moves" was in astronomy.
See: Alfred Wegener, List of Tectonic Plate Interactions, obduction, subduction
External links
- U.S. Geological Survey Web Page Links
- This Dynamic Earth provides an excellent overview of the subject.
- Understanding plate motions
- plate map
- Artist's cross section illustrating the main types of plate boundaries
- "Ring of Fire", Plate Tectonics, Sea-Floor Spreading, Subduction Zones, "Hot Spots"
- J. Tuzo Wilson: Discovering transforms and hotspots
- Active volcanoes
- San Andreas fault information
- Academic research sites.
- Interactive movie showing 750 myr (million years) of global tectonic activity.
- More movies over smaller regions and smaller time scales.
- The Paleomap Project: numerous maps and movies.
- Web Dogs tectonic reconstructions and interactive movies.
- Exceptionally detailed tectonic history of Wisconsin.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Plate tectonics."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
DRIFT | English | Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform Spectroscopy | Physics |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonyms: DriftSynonyms: gallery (n), heading (n), impetus (n), impulsion (n), purport (n), trend (n), be adrift (v), blow (v), cast (v), err (v), float (v), freewheel (v), ramble (v), range (v), roam (v), rove (v), stray (v), swan (v), tramp (v), vagabond (v), wander (v). (additional references) |
| Synonyms by domain: drive-in (mining). |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Approach | Verb: approach, approximate, appropinquate; near; get near, go near, draw near; come to close quarters, come near; move towards, set in towards; drift; make up to; gain upon; pursue; tread on the heels of; bear up; make the land; hug the shore, hug the land. |
Assemblage | Accumulation; (store); congeries, heap, lump, pile, rouleau, tissue, mass, pyramid; bing; drift; snowball, snowdrift; acervation, cumulation; glomeration, agglomeration; conglobation; conglomeration, conglomerate; coacervate, coacervation, coagmentation, aggregation, concentration, congestion, omnium gaterum, spicilegium, black hole of Calcutta;accumulation; (store); congeries, heap, lump, pile, rouleau, tissue, mass, pyramid; bing; drift; snowball, snowdrift; acervation, cumulation; glomeration, agglomeration; conglobation; conglomeration, conglomerate; coacervate, coacervation, coagmentation, aggregation, concentration, congestion, omnium gaterum, spicilegium, black hole of Calcutta; quantity; (greatness). |
Cold | Ice; snow, snowflake, snow crystal, snow drift; sleet; hail, hailstone; rime, frost; hoar frost, white frost, hard frost, sharp frost; barf; glaze, lolly; icicle, thick-ribbed ice; fall of snow, heavy fall; iceberg, icefloe; floe berg; glacier; nev_e, serac; pruina. |
Deviation | Stray, straggle; sidle; diverge; tralineate; digress, wander; wind, twist, meander; veer, tack; divagate; sidetrack; turn aside, turn a corner, turn away from; wheel, steer clear of; ramble, rove, drift; go astray, go adrift; yaw, dodge; step aside, ease off, make way for, shy. |
Direction | Noun: direction, bearing, course, vector; set, drift, tenor; tendency; incidence; bending, trending; Verb: dip, tack, aim, collimation; steering steerage. |
Facility | Flow with the stream, swim with the stream, drift with the stream, go with the stream, flow with the tide, drift with the tide; see one's way; have all one's own way, have the game in one's own hands; walk over the course, win at a canter; make light of, make nothing of, make no bones of. |
Imagination | Noun: meaning; signification, significance; sense, expression; import, purport; force; drift, tenor, spirit, bearing, coloring; scope. |
Intention | Final cause; raison d'etre; cui bono; object, aim, end; "the be all and the end all"; drift; (meaning); tendency; destination, mark, point, butt, goal, target, bull's-eye, |
Motion | Verb: be in motion; Adjective: move, go, hie, gang, budge, stir, pass, flit; hover about, hover round, hover about; shift, slide, glide; roll, roll on; flow, stream, run, drift, sweep along; wander; (deviate); walk; change one's place, shift one's place, change one's quarters, shift one's quarters; dodge; keep going, keep moving; |
Navigation | Navigate, warp, luff, scud, boom, kedge; drift, course, cruise, coast; hug the shore, hug the land; circumnavigate. |
Recession | Verb: recede, go, move back, move from, retire; withdraw, shrink, back off; come away, move away, back away, go away, get away, drift away; depart; retreat; move off, stand off, sheer off; fall back, stand aside; run away; (avoid). |
Tendency | Noun: tendency; aptness, proneness, proclivity, bent, turn, tone, bias, set, leaning to, predisposition, inclination, propensity, susceptibility; conatus, nisus; liability; quality, nature, temperament; idiocrasy, idiosyncrasy; cast, vein, grain; humor, mood; drift; (direction); conduciveness, conducement; applicability; (utility); subservience; (instrumentality). |
Transference | Drift. |
Wind | Noun: wind, draught, flatus, afflatus, efflation, eluvium; air; breath, breath of air; puff, whiff, zephyr; blow, breeze, drift; aura; stream, current, jet stream; undercurrent. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Well, it's very comfortable just to drift here (The Graduate; writing credit: Calder Willingham) They have no purpose that unites them so they drift around, blundering through life until they die. Which they know is coming and yet every single one of them is surprised when it happens to them (Buffy the Vampire Slayer; writing credit: Doreen Spicer) Some of the holes are gonna be in you. Ya catching my drift, Snake (Running Scared; writing credit: Gary DeVore; Jimmy Huston) Rourke's Drift It'd take an Irishman to give his name to a rotten stinking middle o' nowhere hole like this (Zulu; writing credit: John Prebble;) The catch is, a boat this big doesn't exactly stop on a dime and if we're too close, we'll drift right into the back of him. (The Hunt for Red October; writing credit: Larry Ferguson) | |
Lyrics | And drift away (Drift Away; performing artist: The Nylons) Drift away like Tom Sawyer, ride a raft with ol' Huck Finn (Mountain Music; performing artist: ALABAMA; writing credit: Randy Owen) And all my cares just drift right into space (Up On the Roof; performing artist: James Taylor) As the days go by, we seem to drift apart (Valotte; performing artist: Julian Lennon) Never will we drift apart (Ballerina Girl; performing artist: Lionel Richie) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Continental Drift (1970) Drift Fence (1936) Snow Drift (1914) Clearing a Drift (1898) The Artificial Drift (2003) | |
Song Titles | Drift Away (performing artist: The Nylons) Drift Away (performing artist: UNCLE KRACKER f/ DOBIE GRAY) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Periodicals |
| ||
Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
| ||
High Tech |
| ||
Consumer Goods | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Station NIU during reobservation of World Longitude stations Looking for evidence of continental drift Instruments too crude to measure small earth movements Astro party of Joseph Lushene. Credit: Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection. |  | Recovering drift buoy dropped from aircraft in North Pacific Recovery on SURVEYOR - Photo #1 of sequence. Credit: Coast & Geodetic Survey Historical Image Collection. |
 | "The Start of a Blizzard from the South; Drift Coming around Mount Erebus." In: "The Heart of the Antarctic", Volume II, by E. H. Shackleton, 1909. P. 80. Library Call Number G149 S52. Credit: Paths Less Taken - NOAA at the Ends of the Earth. |  | A drift buoy with radar reflector for studying surface currents. Credit: Paths Less Taken - NOAA at the Ends of the Earth. |
 | People fishing from drift boat on the North Umpqua River. Credit: Gregg Morgan. |  | Rogue River - Below Rainie Falls (950 cfs), wild section. Drift boat fishing. Credit: Unknown. |
 | Utah - trains of cars of the Union Pacific Railroad snow-bound in a drift near Ogden / from a sketch by J.B. Schultz. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Sand drift along fence. Dust Bowl, north of Dalhart, Texas. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Furrowing against the wind to check the drift of sand. Dust Bowl, north of Dalhart, Texas. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Pulling government car out of snow drift. Todd County, South Dakota. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Snow drift in field" by Carl Dwyer Commentary: "A picture of the neighbours tractor shed in the dead of winter. That day the sun came out and lightened-up our lives a little : ) So I jump on my motocross bike powered through the snow and took this photo, it has also been used by the local paper 2 years" | "Burned Board" by Christie Ortiz Commentary: "A piece of drift wood that may have been used in a campfire..." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Henri Frederic Amiel | To depersonalize man is the dominant drift of our times. |
Oliver Wendell Holmes | To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor. |
Walt Whitman | The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Author | Date | Quotation |
Winston S. Churchill | 1946 | Do not let us take the course of allowing events to drift along until it is too late. ("Iron Curtain" Speech) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Through the Looking-Glass | Carroll, Lewis | So the boat was left to drift down the stream as it would, till it glided gently in among the waving rushes |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Joyce, James | The water of the rivulet was dark with endless drift and mirrored the highdrifting clouds |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | During stage 1, which is light sleep, we drift in and out of sleep and can be awakened easily. (references) | |
Business | Sixty percent of manufacturers and retailers still provide their own logistics services, though there is a discernable drift toward outsourcing of any non-core activities. (references) | |
Economic History | Papua New Guinea | A considerable urban drift toward Port Moresby and other major centers has occurred in recent years. (references) |
Lithuania | Terrain: Lithuania's fertile, central lowland plains are separated by hilly uplands created by glacial drift. (references) | |
Georgia | At the same time, electricity prices are being liberalized and allowed to drift upward to reflect market rates. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
Bill Clinton | 1993-2001 | We replaced drift and deadlock with renewal and reform. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Drift" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 61.80% of the time. "Drift" is used about 1,130 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 61.8% | 698 | 9,558 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 27.76% | 314 | 16,289 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 10.26% | 116 | 29,969 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.18% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 1,130 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "drift": acceleration insensitive drift rate ♦ angle of drift ♦ continental drift ♦ drift across the sky ♦ Drift anchor ♦ drift angle ♦ drift apart ♦ drift away ♦ drift by wind ♦ drift down ♦ drift downstream ♦ drift epoch ♦ drift error ♦ drift failure ♦ drift hammer ♦ drift ice ♦ drift mobility ♦ Drift net ♦ drift net fishing ♦ Drift of the forest ♦ drift off ♦ drift sail ♦ drift scratch ♦ drift snow ♦ drift structure ♦ drift to the ground ♦ drift up ♦ frequency drift ♦ Glacial drift ♦ Gopher drift ♦ lateral drift landing ♦ let things drift ♦ longshore drift ♦ sand drift ♦ slusher drift ♦ snow drift ♦ star drift ♦ topic drift ♦ wage drift ♦ wind shadow drift ♦ zero drift. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "drift": drift-back, drift-beating, drift-dissipative, drift-filled, drift-fishing, drift-lines, drift-net, drift-nets, drift-netted, drift-netters, drift-netting, drift-pin, drift-transistor, drift-tube, drift-wood. | |
Ending with "drift": cloud-drift, down-drift, ice-drift, pro-drift, register-drift, snow-drift, spin-drift, wage-drift. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "drift"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Afrikaans | dryf (actuate, be adrift, chase, drive, drive on, float, impel, shoo, swim). (various references) | |
Albanian | depozitim (deposit, pocket), domethënie (connotation, import, importance, meaning, purport, sense, significance), drejtim (accost, administration, conduct, course, direction, directorship, disposal, guide, headship, helm, lead, leadership, lie, line, management, manual, operation, orientation, quarter, rectification, regimen, resort, run, set, steerage, supervision, tenor, trend, vector, way), drurë etj. që i merr rryma, lëvizje (bustling, buzz, flow, locomotion, motion, move, movement, removal, shifting, stir, traffic, transfer), e merr, eci pa drejtim, endem (blunder, divagate, gad about, itinerate, muck about, range, roam, traipse, tramp, trapes, vagabondize, wander), formon pirgje, çon, lëviz pa qëllim, tunel kalimi, mbetje (failure, odds and ends, refuse, remnant, residue, shorts, tailings), pirg (aggregation, bank, clamp, cumulus, heap, heaps of, huddle, hump, jumble, mountain, pile, stack), prirje (affinity, aptitude, bent, current, disposition, flair, fondness, gift, habit, inclination, leaning, liability, mission, penchant, proclivity, propensity, run, set, taste, tendency, trend, vocation), rrjedhë (course, current, effluence, flow, March, onflow, run, tenor, tide, watercourse), rrymë (current, effluent, jet, Niagara, nullah, onflow, outpour, rain, spurt, squirt, stream, thrashing-floor, threshing floor, tide, wave), shkon pas rrjedhës, shmangie nga kursi (yaw), tendencë (aim, inclination, leaning, proclivity, set, tendency, trend), kuptim (comprehension, conception, construction, hang, import, meaning, perception, point, purport, realization, sense, significance, signification, stress, understanding). (various references) | |
Arabic | جرى مع التيار, ركام (bank, cumulus, heap, jumble, mess, moraine, morass, mound, pile, stuff), ركام مختلط, ثلج (ice, quick acting, quick freeze, slip, snow), إتجاه (bearing, course, direction, movement, orientation, persuasion, quarter, range, sense, temper, tendency, tenor, trend), إندفاع (break, burst, dash, dive, fling, impulse, impulsion, impulsiveness, lunge, onrush, prod, raciness, rush, scramble, surge, tear), إنجراف (driftage, erode), إنجرف (wash), إنتقال تدريجي, إنحراف (aberration, cant, declination, deflection, deflexion, deformity, departure, depravity, deviation, deviousness, divergence, diversion, excursion, immorality, inclination, list, obliqueness, obliquity, perversion, perversity, sheer, sidetrack, swerve, tangency, twist), رواسب مجروفة, جرف (cliff, curette, drag, dragging, escarpment, palisade, plow, precipice, rake, shovel, sweep, sweep away, sweeping, transport, undercut bank, wash), مجرى (current, run, stream, trend), طفا (float, put out, ride, shut off, smother, swim), سرب (bevy, flock, group, herd, infiltrate, leak, swarm), سوق بقوة الرياح, تدفعه الرياح, تدفق (affluence, afflux, bubble, discharge, flow, flowing, fluency, flux, gush, inflow, influx, inrush, issue, jet, onrush, outbreak, outflow, outpouring, pour, roll, shoot, shoot up, slop, spirt, spout, spurt, stream, surge, throng), تراكم (accumulate, accumulation, bank, bulk, collect, collection, cumulation, gathering, inure, pack, pile, piling up, press), حركة (activity, business, dash, motion, move, movement, stir), غبار (dust, powder), غطى بركام, مرسي عائم, إنحرف (astrict, deflect, depart, deviate, deviate from, diverge, divert, incline, jibe, jump, nose, pervert, sidetrack, skew, slew, slue, squint, stray, swerve, swing, turn, veer). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | пробой (mandrel, mandrill, pricker), направление (bound, direction, heading, range, run, set, tendency, track, turn, way), морско течение, замба (pricker), бездействувам (be inactive, hibernate, idle, screw around, sit back, sleep, slumber, twiddle one's thumbs), бавно течение, дрейф (driftage, leeway, sag), пуасон (die, plunger, punch, swage), носени от вятъра облаци, преспа (driven-snow), подкарано стадо, пасивност (inactivity, passiveness, passivity), плавей (driftage, drift-wood, float, floatage, flotage, flotsam), плаваща рибарска мрежа (drift net), дрейфирам, пускам трупи, шибан от вятъра дъжд, скитам (bum, hike, hobo, ramble, roam about, roll, rove, tramp, vagabond), речно течение, разширявам (add, amplify, broach, broaden, dilate, distend, enlarge, expand, full, push, stretch, widen), рикоширам (glance, glance off, rebound, ricochet, skip), хоризонтална галерия (adit), течение (course, current, draught, flow, flowage, flux, fluxion, lapse, onflow, passage, stream, sweep, tide), намерение (aim, aiming, animus, design, intent, intention, motion, notion, object, plan, purpose, scope, thought, view), шомпол (rammer, ramrod), нанос (alluvion, alluvium, blanket, debris, deposit, deposition, float, silt, warp, wash), клин за избиване, оставям се на съдбата, отклонение (aberration, bias, declination, deflection, deflexion, derivation, detour, deviation, digression, divergence, divergency, diversion, excursion, inflection, inflexion, lapse, ramification, shunt, swerve, turnout, variation), нося се без компас, нося се (be rife, bound, float, hover, rack, resound, ride, roll, sail, sashay, skim, skitter, slip, spin along, sweep, wear, wing), стремеж (aim, appetite, hankering, intent, intention, search, seeking, striving, yen, zeal), тенденция (hang, movement, pattern, ply, proclivity, proneness, propensity, run, set, stream, tendency, tenor, tide, trend, turn, vein). (various references) | |
Chinese | 漂移 , 漂泊 (Bohemian), 漂游 . (various references) | |
Czech | zahnání vìtrem, závìj (snow drift, snowdrift), vliv (clout, effect, hold, influence, leverage, pull), proudìní (convection, flux, race), proud (current, flood, flow, flush, gush, jet, race, river, run, spout, stream, trend), přesyp, hnát (drive, propel), flákat se (bugger, mess around, mooch), být unášen, žít bez cíle. (various references) | |
Danish | drivtømmer (driftwood), drift (conation, cultivation, drive, drove, farming, impulse, instinct, management, Operation, revenue, urge), vandring (migration, migratory flow, trailing, travel, wander), skaar (chip, notch, splinter, swath, windrow, winrow), medrevne vanddraaber, materiale i sekundært leje, langsom hastighedsændring, langsom billedbevægelse (swim), lang bunke af hugstaffald (swath, windrow, winrow), forstøvningstab (carry-over, windage loss), forløbning (because of heterogeneities in the workpiece, deviation of a hole from the intended path, wander), finne (fin, Finn), borepatron (chuck, mandrel, mandril, socket), aflejring (accretion, aggradation, alluvial, alluvial deposit, alluviation, alluvion, alluvium, bedding, crud, deposit, deposition, drop crater, droplet impaction, fluvial outwash, fouling, point deposit, precipitate, sediment, sedimentation, silting, spray coating, spray deposit), afdrift (crab, leeway, take-off, wandering, windage). (various references) | |
Dutch | drijven (float, shoo, swim), drýven (be adrift, chase, drive, drive on, float, impel, shoo, swim), drift (are, bevy, cluster, collection, group, heap, herd, pack, set), drijfhout (driftwood, waif, waifwood), op drift zijn, op drift zýn (be adrift), kielvlak, zwad (spraying width, swath, treated swath, windrow, winrow), verloop (action, alteration, change, conversion, decline, going down, lawsuit, process, transformation), afdrýven (be adrift, blow over), verplaatst materiaal, zijwaartse verplaatsing, boorhouder (chuck, mandrel, mandril, socket), afwijking (aberrance, aberration, abnormality), afdrijven (cupellation), in een luchtstroom meegevoerde nevel. (various references) | |
Esperanto | drivi (be adrift). (various references) | |
Faeroese | reka (be adrift, chase, drive, drive on, flow, impel, shoo). (various references) | |
Farsi | یخرفت (Till), مقصود (Design, Idea, Innuendo, Proposition, Purpose, Sentiment, Significance), معنی (Abstract, Connotation, Definition, Effect, Idea, Implication, Innuendo, Intent, Moral, Purporst, Sense, Significance), توده شدن , توده باداورده , جمع شدن (Aggregate, Assemble, Backlog, Beehive, Congregate, Constringe, Flock, Gather, Group, Herd, Muster, Retract, Shrink, Snuggle, Twitch), جسم شناور (Buoy), جریان اهسته , دستخوش پیشامدبودن , بی مقصدرفتن , بی اراده کارکردن , برف باداورده . (various references) | |
Finnish | tendenssi (purpose, tendency, trend), suunta (course, direction, quarter, tendency, trend, way), ryömintä (crawling), poikkeama (declination, deflection, deviation), nietos, luoko (swath, windrow, winrow), kulkeutua (be carried), kinos, kasaantua (accumulate), karho (swath, windrow, winrow), hakkuujätekasa (swath, windrow, winrow), ajopuu (driftwood, waif, waifwood), ajelehtiminen, ajelehtia (be adrift, float), ajautua (be driven, be stranded). (various references) | |
French | dériver, dérive (driftage, drifting). (various references) | |
German | Treiben (battue, be adrift, be up to, beat, bring, carry on, chase, commit, create, do, drive, drive on, enchase, float, force, hustle and bustle, impel, jack up, leaven, make, make rise, move, propel, pursue, push, push out, put forth, put out, rush, shoo, sprout, swirling, throw out, thrust, to enchase, urge, work, wreak), Tendenz (bias, direction, intention, run, slant, tendency, tenor, trend), Richtung (departure, direction, movement, quarter, route, school of thought, tack, tendency, trend, way), langsames Abwandern, Drift (leeway), Abtrift (crab, deviation, drift of plummet wire, leeway). (various references) | |
Greek | μετακινηθέντα υλικά, ολίσθηση (slide, sliding, sliping), Διολίσθηση, τάση (affinity, bent, inclination, potential, proclivity, strain, tendency, trend), άτακτος βοσκή (trailing), εκτροπή τρυπανιού (because of heterogeneities in the workpiece, deviation of a hole from the intended path, e.g., wander), εκτροπή,έκπτωση, παραδέρνω (flounder, give a good thrashing), παρασύρομαι (get carried away by), παρασύρω (carry away, decoy, draw away, entice, lure, mislead), παρέκκλιση (aberrance, aberrance or aberration, aberration, deflection, departure, deviation, leeway), διαφυγούσα ξυλεία (driftwood), μανδρέλιο (chuck, mandrel, mandril), κυματισμός (ripple), ξηρότεροσ, στοά (arcade, gallery, loggia, portico, stoa), σφικτήρας (chuck, mandrel, mandril), συμπαρασύρομαι, συμπαρασύρω, σωρόσ (cluster, collection, crop, heap, hoard, mass, pile, shoal, stack, stook, tumulus), έδαφος προερχόμενον εκ μεταφοράς, ρεύμα (creek, current, rip, stream, waft), έκπτωση (allowance, deduction, discount, markdown, rebate, reduction), έκπτωση πορείας, πλαγία μετατόπισις. (various references) | |
Hebrew | מגמה (aim, strain, tendency, tenor, tide, trend), לסחוף (carry away, erode, sweep, sweep away, wash away), הסחפות (being carried along, dragging), סחיפה (erosion, leeway, sweeping, wash). (various references) | |
Hungarian | szándék (aim, animus, design, determination, intent, intention, mind, notion, object, objective, pretence, purport, purpose, resolution, resolve, tenor, thought, will), sodródás (convolute, drifting, skidding), oldalgás (derivation, lateral, lateral deflection, traverse, yaw). (various references) | |
Indonesian | terkatung-katung (be uncertain, float, hover), tendensi, pengaliran, aliran (CONDUIT, current, flow, genre, ism, PIPELINE, stream, TREND, WIRING). (various references) | |
Italian | deriva (keel, leeway, sailing dinghy). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 漂流 (drifting). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | きすう (cardinal number, odd number, tendency, trend), ひょうりゅう (drifting), ふきだまり (a drift of snow or leaves, a hangout for drifters), へんさ (declination, deflection, deviation, variation), へんりゅう. (various references) | |
Korean | 편류 (Drifting). (various references) | |
Manx | troa (current, direction, set, strike, surge, trend), sheid (blast, blast on instrument, blow, blow of wind, puff), sheebey (accumulation, blow about, blowing, drive, gust, sandbank on land, scold), sheeb (a sharp scold, cry, gust, puff), raagh (pronounceable), obbyr rea, immeeaght (act, action, decampment, depart, departure, exit, exodus, flight of time, going, going away, paces of a horse; current, paces of a horse; current of events, procedure, proceeding, procession, progress, progression, start, way), goll lesh y troa, goll lesh y tidey, goll lesh y gheay, gleashaght (locomotion, motion, movement, play), cleay-heebey, bree (animation, effect, energy, essence, exhalation, gist, glow, implication, importance, initiative, interpretation, inwardness, power, significance, stamina, validity, vigour, virtue), beoyn (aptness, fate, instinct, liability, set, tendency, trend), aah (ford). (various references) | |
Norwegian | drive. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | iftdray.(various references) | |
Portuguese | movimento (action, activity, agitation, beat, drive, heartbeat, hustle, jog, motion, move, movement, run, traffic, way), mandril (arbor, arbour, broach, reamer, roasting-jack), deriva (driftage, leeway). (various references) | |
Romanian | derivã (fin, leeway), devia (deflect, depart, digress, diverge, glance, straggle, swerve, wander, warp), direcţie (bearing, board, course, departure, direction, directorate, lay, leadership, manager's office, mastership, path, run, set, setting, track, trend, way), duce cu sine (carry along, carry away, carry off, catch away, float), dunã (dune), inactivitate (idleness, inactivity, vacancy), acoperi cu morman, aluviune (alluvia, alluvium, ooze, silt, warp), aversã (downfall, downpour, drencher), face mormane, fi în derivã (lie to), fi purtat de curent, fi purtat de vânt, îngrãmãdi (accumulate, acerbate, aggregate, assemble, clump, cram, crowd, garner, gather, heap, huddle, jam, lumber, lump, pack, pile, pile up, put in a heap, squeeze, throng), grãmadã (aheap, assemblage, batch, block, bulk, clamp, clump, cluster, cob, collection, congeries, crowd, flock, heap, host, hulk, load, lump, mass, mountain, multitude, ocean, pack, Peck, pile, power, shoal, snag, stack, throng, ton, wilderness of), troian (heap, snow drift, trojan, wall), matriţã de perforat, morman (cob, heap, Hill, mass, mound, pile, stack), pasivitate (inactivity, passiveness, passivity), plutire (floatage, floatation, floating), se face mormane, se lãsa în voia sorţei, se lãsa dus de valurile vieţii, se troieni, sens (acceptance, acceptation, amount, bearing, direction, hang, importance, logic, meaning, purport, reason, sense, signification, traffic, use, value, way), strat aluvionar, tendinţã (aptness, bearing, bent, departure, determination, disposition, drive, endeavor, endeavour, hang, inclination, leaning, proclivity, run, strain, streak, striving, tendency, trend), torent (fireworks, flood, fresh, gush, torrent), gãuri (bore, drill, Gore, hole, perforate, Pierce, pink, pounce, prick, prickle, puncture, spring, vent). (various references) | |
Russian | самотек, течение (course, current, flight, flow, flowing, flux, lapse, onflow, passage, progress, run, stream, tenor, trend), намерение (aim, contemplation, design, idea, intent, intention, mind, notion, purpose, view), ледниковый нанос, быть пассивным, пассивность (inaction, passiveness, passivism, passivity), дрейф постепенный, дрейф (driftage, driving, leeway). (various references) | |
Scottish | sìob (drift as snow). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | zanošenje (driftage, skid, swim), strujanje, skretanje (deflection, shunt, turn, turning, veer), ploviti (navigate, sail, steer), ići polako (linger). (various references) | |
Spanish | derivar del rumbo (be adrift), deriva (leeway, sag). (various references) | |
Swedish | drift (administration, banter, chaff, drifting, drive, impulsion, instinct, jest, jesting, joking, Josh, leg pull, management, operation, persiflage, running, service, traffic, urge, working), avdrift (driftage, leeway). (various references) | |
Thai | แนวทาง, แรงผลักดัน (momentum), เร่ร่อน, กองดิน, ลอย (levitate, ride, swim), หลง, ความหมาย (meaning). (various references) | |
Turkish | düşünme (cerebration, cogitation, consideration, reck, thinking, thought), gidişat (complexion, course, going, goings on, set, state of affairs, trend, way), akıntıya kapılma, amaç (aim, bourn, Bourne, cause, consummation, design, destination, dream, function, goal, idea, ideal, intent, intention, meaning, mission, object, objective, plan, point, purpose, purview, scope, sense, target, terminus, turn, use, view, wherefore, will), anlama (appreciation, apprehension, comprehension, fathom, grasp, grip, insight, intelligence, knowledge, prehension, realization, sense, understanding, uptake), belirsizlik (ambiguity, dark, doubtfulness, dreaminess, dreariness, dubiousness, equivocalness, fogginess, fuzziness, generality, gloom, haze, haziness, if, incalculability, indefiniteness, indistinctness, laxity, laxness, limbo, suspense, troubled waters, twilight world, twilight zone, uncertainty, vagueness), eğilim (affection, aptitude, bent, bias, current, device, disposition, gravitation, inclination, leaning, liability, notion, obliquity, penchant, ply, predisposition, proclivity, proneness, propensity, pulse, relish, sense, set, slant, squint, tendency, tenor, tide, tilt, trend, turn, twist), erek (aim, end, goal, ideal, intention, land of promise, objective, promised land, terminus), etki (action, bearing, clout, drag, effect, effectiveness, efficacy, efficiency, force, forcefulness, hold, impact, impress, impression, imprint, incidence, influence, interest, jolt, leaven, penetration, point, potency, pull, purchase, reflection, reflexion, ring, sound, stamp, sway, virtue, weight), akıntı (afflux, chute, circulation, current, effluence, effluent, flow, flux, issue, race, stream), gayesiz yaşamak, yığmak (accumulate, agglomerate, amass, bank up, cast up, clump, clutter, clutter up, congest, conglomerate, dump, heap up, Hill, lay up, lump, mass, pack, pile, pile on, pile up, put up, roll up, shake down, stack, stock), hayatın akışına bırakmak, kendini koyvermek (let go, let oneself go), sürüklemek (blow away, drag, drag along, eat at, eat away, Hale, incline, lug, make leeway, pluck, schlep, schlepp, sweep, sweep before one, trail, train, tug, waft, wash away, wash off), sürüklenme (being dragged along, scud), sürüklenmek (be dragged along, be led to, drag on, lug, ride, scud, slide into, take tow, trail, wash away, wash off), sapma (bias, declension, declination, deflection, deflexion, departure, detour, deviation, divagation, excursion, inequality, lapse, obliqueness, obliquity, perversion, refracting, refractive, spread, swing, turn, warp), toplanmak (accumulate, agglomerate, assemble, band together, build, bunch, club, club together, cluster, collect, combine, congregate, convene, crowd, flock, forgather, gather, get together, group, herd, horde, keep together, meet, meet in council, mob, muster, rally, reunite, roll up, shoal, sit, sit on, swarm, swarm to a place, throng, troop, troop together, troop up, turn out), yığılmak (agglomerate, bank up, conglomerate, draw up, flop, pour, roll up, slump down, subside, swarm), göç (emigration, exodus, expatriation, immigration, migration, migratory, transmigration, trek). (various references) | |
Turkmen | kaсkamak (go for a walk, loiter). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | відноситися (appertain, apply), відносити (carry away, carry off), повільна течія, пливти за течією (tide), дрейфувати (come adrift), дрейф (driftage, driving, leeway), девіація. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | xu thế tự nhiên, trầm tích băng hà lưới trôi, thái độ thụ động, thái độ nằm ì, thái độ nước chảy bèo trôi chiều hướng, sự tiến triển mục đích, khuynh hướng (leaning, tendency), cái khoan (auger), ý nghĩa (amount, meaning), ý định (aim, design, intent, intention, scope, turn, will). (various references) | |
Welsh | lluchio (fling, pelt, throw). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Middle French | 1400-1600 | vogue. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "drift": driftage, driftages, drifted, drifter, drifters, driftier, driftiest, drifting, driftingly, driftpin, driftpins, drifts, driftwood, driftwoods, drifty. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "drift": adrift, snowdrift, spindrift. (additional references) | |
Words containing "drift": snowdrifts, spindrifts. (additional references) | |
| |
"Drift" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: brift, dift, diraft, dirf, dref, dreff, drefn, dreft, dreyt, drif, drife, Drifte, drist, drit, Dritte, driut, drivet, driveth, druf, drufe, Druiett, Druiff, Druitt, drutt, dryet, dryt, prift, trift. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "drift" (pronounced dri"ft) |
| 5 | d r i" f t | adrift. |
| 4 | -r i" f t | rift, shrift, thrift. |
| 3 | -i" f t | Clift, gift, lift, miffed, shift, sift, sniffed, stiffed, swift. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "d-f-i-r-t" | |
-1 letter: dirt, frit, rift. | |
-2 letters: dit, fid, fir, fit, rid, rif. | |
-3 letters: id, if, it, ti. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-f-i-r-t" | |
+1 letter: adrift, drifts, drifty, rifted, trifid. | |
+2 letters: drifted, drifter, fatbird, flirted, fritted, fruited, grifted, indraft, trifled, trifold. | |
+3 letters: diffract, draftier, draftily, drafting, driftage, drifters, driftier, drifting, driftpin, fatbirds, fidgeter, filtered, frighted, indrafts, outfired, piedfort, profited, ratified, redshift, refitted, resifted, tariffed. | |
+4 letters: airlifted, antidraft, antifraud, brutified, certified, decertify, deformity, denitrify, dentiform, devitrify, different, diffracts, draffiest, draftiest, draftings, driftages, driftiest, driftpins, driftwood, fidgeters, filtrated, firsthand, flittered, floriated, floridity, forfeited, fortified, fortitude, freighted, frigidity, frittered, fruitwood, gratified, headfirst, infarcted, infracted, ingrafted, interfold, introfied, metrified, mortified, nitrified, petrified, piedforts, presifted, putrefied, rectified, redshifts, snowdrift, spindrift, surfeited, terrified, threadfin, torrefied, torrified, vitrified. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Quotations: Familiar 10. Quotations: Historic 11. Quotations: Fiction 12. Quotations: Non-fiction | 13. Quotations: Speeches 14. Usage Frequency 15. Expressions 16. Expressions: Internet | 17. Translations: Modern 18. Translations: Ancient 19. Abbreviations 20. Acronyms | 21. Derivations 22. Rhymes 23. Anagrams 24. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
