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ADRIFT
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Afloat on the surface of a body of water
Example:
after the storm the boats were adrift
Classified under:
Similar:
afloat (borne on the water; floating)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Aimlessly drifting
Synonyms:
adrift; afloat; aimless; directionless; planless; rudderless; undirected
Classified under:
Similar:
purposeless (not evidencing any purpose or goal)
II. (adverb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Off course, wandering aimlessly
Example:
there was a search for beauty that had somehow gone adrift
Classified under:
Pertainym:
adrift (aimlessly drifting)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Floating freely; not anchored
Example:
the boat was set adrift
Classified under:
Pertainym:
adrift (afloat on the surface of a body of water)
Context examples:
I like books and poetry, and what time I've had I've read 'em, but I've never thought about 'em the way you have. That's why I can't talk about 'em. I'm like a navigator adrift on a strange sea without chart or compass.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Then he opened the door and turned him adrift.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
The boat was cast adrift, though one of them called it a “bloody shame” with Yokohama so near.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
When you think that in the last year of the war we had 140,000 seamen and mariners afloat, commanded by 4000 officers, and that half of these had been turned adrift when the Peace of Amiens laid their ships up in the Hamoaze or Portsdown creek, you will understand that London, as well as the dockyard towns, was full of seafarers.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
They had seen me cut the cables, and thought my design was only to let the ships run adrift or fall foul on each other: but when they perceived the whole fleet moving in order, and saw me pulling at the end, they set up such a scream of grief and despair as it is almost impossible to describe or conceive.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
So, to make a sort of drawn battle of the matter, it was settled that Heinel should be put into an open boat, that lay on the sea-shore hard by; that the father should push him off with his own hand, and that he should thus be set adrift, and left to the bad or good luck of wind and weather.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
Disabled in that typhoon. Old tub. Opened up top and bottom like a sieve. They were adrift four days.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
As to myself, it was determined that I should be set adrift in a small canoe, with paddles and a sail, and four days’ provisions; which last, the Japanese captain was so kind to double out of his own stores, and would permit no man to search me.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Ah! replied the horse, justice and avarice never dwell in one house; my master has forgotten all that I have done for him so many years, and because I can no longer work he has turned me adrift, and says unless I become stronger than a lion he will not take me back again; what chance can I have of that? he knows I have none, or he would not talk so.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
