a. The act of driving; propulsion, impulse, impetus. (Now rare or Obsolete except as in 1b, or 2a.)

b. Forest Law. The driving of the cattle within the precincts of a forest to one place on a particular day, for the determination of ownership, levying of fines, etc. (Cf. drive v. 4b.)

†c. Architecture. The horizontal ‘thrust’ of an arch.

a. The fact or condition of being driven, as by a current; the action of drifting; a slow course or current. Also figurative. on or upon the drift = adrift adv. and adj.

b. Nautical. The deviation of a ship from its course in consequence of currents; esp. in reference to its amount.

c. Gunnery. The constant deviation of an elongated rotating projectile in the direction of its rotation; = derivation n.²

d. A slow variation of the characteristics or operation of an electric circuit or device. Also attributive. Originally U.S.

e. Aeronautics (a) = head resistance n. at head n.¹ Compounds 4; (b) the horizontal deviation of an aircraft from its course in consequence of winds and air currents; also, the rate or amount of such deviation.

f. Astronomy. Originally: any group of stars having a random distribution of velocities; usually applied to a group of stars with an apparent systematic motion towards some point in the sky superimposed on their motion within the group, some or all of the nearest stars belonging to one or other of two such groups with opposite directions of motion.

g. In the migration of birds: the influence of wind currents.

h. Motor Racing. A controlled slide.

a. figurative. Natural or unconscious course, progress, process (of action, argument, †time, etc.); esp. in reference to direction or probable result: Tendency.

b. Philology. (See quot. 1921.)

a. The conscious direction of action or speech to some end; the end itself; what one is ‘driving at’; purpose, intention, object, aim. (Now rare, except in reference to speech or writing: see also 1b.)

b. Meaning, purport, tenor, scope (of a speech or writing). Now the usual sense.

a. A shower (of rain, snow, dust, etc.) driven along by the wind; a driving mass.

b. An accumulation of snow, sand, etc., driven together by the wind. (In quot. a1644 applied to a bed or vein of metal.) Also transferred.

c. A large mass of flowering plants (see quot. 1966).

a. Geology. A term applied (a) to any superficial deposit caused by a current of water or air; also (b) spec. ( the Drift) to Pleistocene deposits of glacial and fluvio-glacial detritus, also known as boulder-clay, and till; diluvium.

b. drift-peat n. a deposit of peat associated with a glacial drift.

b. A large kind of net used in the herring, pilchard, and mackerel fishery, extended by weights at the bottom and floats at the top, and allowed to drift with the tide; also called drift-net n. at Compounds 2.

†c. A fanciful name for a company of fishers.

a. A tool used for driving or ramming something (e.g. for driving piles).

b. A steel tool for enlarging or shaping a hole in a piece of metal; a drift-pin.

c. ‘A priming-iron used to clear the vent of ordnance from burning particles after each discharge’ (Smyth Sailor's Word-bk.).

d. Shipbuilding (see quot.1850).

e. Shipbuilding. The difference between the size of a bolt and the hole into which it is driven, or between the circumference of a hoop and the circumference of the mast on which it is to be driven. (Ogilvie.)

a. gen. A track. poetic and rare.

b. (See quot. 1811.)