to be conveyed lightly by the impulse of wind or waves, or as if by wind or waves
to convey (something) in this way
from obsolete wafter ship guarding a convoy, from early Dutch or early Low German wachter, from wachten to watch, guard. The earliest sense was ‘to escort a convoy’; the current sense arose in the 17th cent. from the 16th-cent. senses ‘to sail’ and ‘to convey by water’