drifting

adjective

1. 1

   Moving aimlessly or at the mercy of external forces.

   The drifting seaweed went wherever the currents carried it.

2. 2

   Without direction, focus, or goal.

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

   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.

noun

1. 1

   The act by which something drifts.

   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.

   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. 2

   That which drifts.

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

3. 3

   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.

verb

1. 1

   Also a form of driftpresent participle and gerund of drift

Forms

plural

driftings