drift

英 [drɪft] 美 [drɪft]

drift 漂流

来自drive, 驱动。

drift: 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.

2. As rural factories shed labour, people drift towards the cities.: 由于农村的工厂纷纷裁员，人们逐渐流向城市。

3. Anybody who's listening will get the drift of what he was saying.: 任何一个在专心听的人都会领悟他所说的大意。

4. Here and there a drift across the road was wet and slushy.: 路上不时会有吹聚起的积雪，泥泞而湿滑。

5. Amy thought she caught the faintest drift of Isabel's flowery perfume.: 埃米觉得她闻到了伊莎贝尔身上飘出的一丝极微弱的花香味香水的味道。