• IPA: /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 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

1. The act by which something drifts.
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. (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.

1. Present participle and gerund of drift