drift: [13] Drift comes ultimately from the same Germanic base as produced drive, and etymologically means ‘driving or being driven’, but as far as we can tell it did not exist in Old English, and the word as we now have it is a borrowing from other Germanic languages. Its first recorded use is in the sense ‘snowdrift’, which points to Old Norse drift as the source, but later more general applications were probably reinforced by Dutch drift. => drive
drift (n.)
c. 1300, literally "a being driven" (of snow, etc.); not recorded in Old English; either a suffixed form of drive (v.) (compare thrift/thrive) or borrowed from Old Norse drift "snow drift," or Middle Dutch drift "pasturage, drove, flock," both from Proto-Germanic *driftiz (cognates: Danish and Swedish drift, German Trift), from PIE root *dhreibh- "to drive, push" (see drive (v.)). Sense of "what one is getting at" is from 1520s. Meaning "controlled slide of a sports car" attested by 1955.
drift (v.)
late 16c., from drift (n.). Figurative sense of "be passive and listless" is from 1822. Related: Drifted; drifting.
雙語例句
1. There was a drift of smoke above the trees.
樹林上空飄浮著一股煙。
來自柯林斯例句
2. As rural factories shed labour, people drift towards the cities.
由于農村的工廠紛紛裁員，人們逐漸流向城市。
來自柯林斯例句
3. Anybody who's listening will get the drift of what he was saying.
任何一個在專心聽的人都會領悟他所說的大意。
來自柯林斯例句
4. Here and there a drift across the road was wet and slushy.
路上不時會有吹聚起的積雪，泥濘而濕滑。
來自柯林斯例句
5. Amy thought she caught the faintest drift of Isabel's flowery perfume.