drifting

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɹɪftɪŋ/

drifting (not comparable)

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

   The drifting seaweed went wherever the currents carried it.

2. Without focus, direction or goal.
   • 1922, W.B. Yeats, The Trembling Veil, Book IV, viii:

     Johnson was stern by nature, stribg by intellect, and always, I think, deliberately picked his company, but Dawson seemed gentle, affectionate, drifting.

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

     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. (motorsports) 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.
2. The act by which something drifts.
   • 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.

3. That which drifts.
   • 1820, John Keats, "Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil," XIV:

     […] with hollow eyes

     Many all day in dazzling river stood,

     To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.

drifting

1. present participle of drift