Adrift

How to spell adrift

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce adrift

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does adrift mean?

1. adjectiveFloating freely without being steered or anchored, or, figuratively, lacking purpose and direction.

Adrift in a sentence

• The empty rowing boat was left adrift on the lake.

• After losing his job he felt completely adrift for several months.

Where does adrift come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from the old prefix a-, meaning 'in a state of' or 'on', joined to the noun drift. Drift comes from the same Germanic root as the verb 'to drive', and it originally described the action of being driven or carried along, especially by water or wind. The prefix a- is the same weakened form of 'on' that survives in words such as 'asleep', 'ashore', and 'aboard', so 'adrift' literally means 'in a state of drifting'. The word appears in English from the early 1600s, first in the practical language of sailors describing a boat that had broken free of its moorings and was being carried by the tide. From that nautical picture it broadened into the modern figurative sense of anyone or anything left without direction or purpose.

How the word is built

• a- (in a state of)
• drift (being carried along by a current)