drifting

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɹɪftɪŋ/
• Rhymes: -ɪftɪŋ

drifting (not comparable)

1. Moving aimlessly or at the mercy of external forces.

   The drifting seaweed went wherever the currents carried it.

2. Without direction, focus, or goal.
   • 1922, W[illiam] B[utler] Yeats, chapter VIII, in The Trembling of the Veil, London: Privately printed for subscribers only by T[homas] Werner Laurie, Ltd., →OCLC, book IV (The Tragic Generation), page 187:

     [Lionel] Johnson was stern by nature, strong by intellect, and always, I think, deliberately picked his company, but [Ernest] Dowson seemed gentle, affectionate, drifting.

   • 1930, John Cowper Powys, chapter X, in The Meaning of Culture:

     There is nothing more expressive of a barbarous and stupid lack of culture than the half-unconscious attitude so many of us slip into, of taking for granted, when we see weak, neurotic, helpless, drifting, unhappy people, that it is by reason of some special merit in us or by reason of some especial favour towards us that the gods have given us an advantage over such persons.

drifting (countable and uncountable, plural driftings)

1. The act by which something drifts.
   • 1960 March, “The January blizzard in the North-East of Scotland”, in Trains Illustrated, page 137:

     True, there had been some heavy falls of snow and some of the roads had become blocked, while north of Inverness there was drifting that held up traffic here and there, but things were no worse than are expected in January.

   • 2009, Mazo de la Roche, Whiteoak Heritage, page 204:

     Still, she did not regret him, for nothing Ernest could have given her would have equalled the delight of those romantic driftings on the lake with Eden.

2. That which drifts.
   • 1820, John Keats, “Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil. A Story from Boccaccio.”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, stanza XIV, page 56:

     [W]ith hollow eyes / Many all day in dazzling river stood, / To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.

3. (motor racing) A driving technique where the driver intentionally oversteers, causing loss of traction in the rear wheels, while maintaining control from entry to exit of a corner.

drifting

1. present participle and gerund of drift