ADRIFT

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does adrift mean? 

• ADRIFT (adjective)
  The adjective ADRIFT has 2 senses:

1. aimlessly drifting

2. afloat on the surface of a body of water

  Familiarity information: ADRIFT used as an adjective is rare.

• ADRIFT (adverb)
  The adverb ADRIFT has 2 senses:

1. floating freely; not anchored

2. off course, wandering aimlessly

  Familiarity information: ADRIFT used as an adverb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ADRIFT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Aimlessly drifting

Synonyms:

adrift; afloat; aimless; directionless; planless; rudderless; undirected

Similar:

purposeless (not evidencing any purpose or goal)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Afloat on the surface of a body of water

Context example:

after the storm the boats were adrift

Similar:

afloat (borne on the water; floating)

• ADRIFT (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Floating freely; not anchored

Context example:

the boat was set adrift

Pertainym:

adrift (afloat on the surface of a body of water)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Off course, wandering aimlessly

Context example:

there was a search for beauty that had somehow gone adrift

Pertainym:

adrift (aimlessly drifting)

 Context examples 

This was to slip out under cover of the night, cut the HISPANIOLA adrift, and let her go ashore where she fancied.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Such as the peasant enjoys when his family have been massacred before his eyes, his cottage burnt, his lands laid waste, and he is turned adrift, homeless, penniless, and alone, but free.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

One day he took her to walk with him out of the town, and showed her the spot where the boat was set adrift upon the wide waters.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I had been with them five years, and old Coxon gave me a ripping good testimonial when the smash came, but of course we clerks were all turned adrift, the twenty-seven of us.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Then I ran to the side. The masts, booms, and gaffs I had cleared were gone. He had found the lines which held them, and cast them adrift.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

’Twas a carronade that came adrift in the Bay when it was blowing a top-gallant breeze with a beam sea.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

If he might not return to Beaulieu within the year, and if his brother's dogs were to be set upon him if he showed face upon Minstead land, then indeed he was adrift upon earth.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He entertained me with great kindness, observing me not to look wildly, or talk inconsistently: and, when we were left alone, desired I would give him a relation of my travels, and by what accident I came to be set adrift, in that monstrous wooden chest.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I had grown to be so accustomed to the Micawbers, and had been so intimate with them in their distresses, and was so utterly friendless without them, that the prospect of being thrown upon some new shift for a lodging, and going once more among unknown people, was like being that moment turned adrift into my present life, with such a knowledge of it ready made as experience had given me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Jo knew nothing about philosophy or metaphysics of any sort, but a curious excitement, half pleasurable, half painful, came over her as she listened with a sense of being turned adrift into time and space, like a young balloon out on a holiday.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)