Nominal Forms
Infinitive: to drift off
Participle: drifted off
Gerund: drifting off
Cognates
-
Indicative
Present
| I | drift off |
| you | drift off |
| he;she;it | drifts off |
| we | drift off |
| you | drift off |
| they | drift off |
Perfect
| I | have drifted off |
| you | have drifted off |
| he;she;it | has drifted off |
| we | have drifted off |
| you | have drifted off |
| they | have drifted off |
Past
| I | drifted off |
| you | drifted off |
| he;she;it | drifted off |
| we | drifted off |
| you | drifted off |
| they | drifted off |
Pluperfect
| I | had drifted off |
| you | had drifted off |
| he;she;it | had drifted off |
| we | had drifted off |
| you | had drifted off |
| they | had drifted off |
Future
| I | will drift off |
| you | will drift off |
| he;she;it | will drift off |
| we | will drift off |
| you | will drift off |
| they | will drift off |
Future Perfect
| I | will have drifted off |
| you | will have drifted off |
| he;she;it | will have drifted off |
| we | will have drifted off |
| you | will have drifted off |
| they | will have drifted off |
Subjunctive
Present
| I | drift off |
| you | drift off |
| he;she;it | drift off |
| we | drift off |
| you | drift off |
| they | drift off |
Perfect
| I | have drifted off |
| you | have drifted off |
| he;she;it | have drifted off |
| we | have drifted off |
| you | have drifted off |
| they | have drifted off |
Imperfect
| I | drifted off |
| you | drifted off |
| he;she;it | drifted off |
| we | drifted off |
| you | drifted off |
| they | drifted off |
Pluperfect
| I | had drifted off |
| you | had drifted off |
| he;she;it | had drifted off |
| we | had drifted off |
| you | had drifted off |
| they | had drifted off |
Conditional
Present
| I | would drift off |
| you | would drift off |
| he;she;it | would drift off |
| we | would drift off |
| you | would drift off |
| they | would drift off |
Perfect
| I | would have drifted off |
| you | would have drifted off |
| he;she;it | would have drifted off |
| we | would have drifted off |
| you | would have drifted off |
| they | would have drifted off |
Imperative
| you | drift off |
| we | Let's drift off |
| you | drift off |
Verbs conjugated like 'drift'
abandon,
abduct,
abear,
aberr,
abject,
abord,
abort,
abound,
abraid,
abray,
abrook,
abscind,
abscond,
absist,
absorb,
abstain,
abstract,
accend,
accent,
accept, etc. (List truncated at 20 verbs)
Verbs similar to 'drift'
draft,
grift,
rift,
bedrift,
brit,
craft,
crit,
croft,
cruft,
deify,
Additional Information
Etymology
1. c.1300, lit. "a being driven" (of snow, etc.); not recorded in O.E., borrowed from O.N. or M.Du. drift, from P.Gmc. *driftiz, related to *dribanan "to drive." The verb is first attested c.1600. Sense of "what one is getting at" is from 1526. Drifter is first recorded 1864, as a mining term; meaning "a man following an aimless way of life" is from 1908. Driftwood first recorded 1633.
2. From Middle English drift, dryft (“act of driving, drove, shower of rain or snow, impulse”), from Old English *drift (“drift”), from Proto-Germanic *driftiz (“drift”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreybʰ- (“to drive, push”). Equivalent to drive + -t; cognate with North Frisian drift (“drift”), Saterland Frisian Drift (“current, flow, stream, drift”), Dutch drift (“drift, passion, urge”), German Drift (“drift”) and Trift (“drove, pasture”), Danish drift (“impulse, instinct”), Swedish drift (“impulse, instinct”), Icelandic drift (“drift, snow-drift”).
Sample Sentences
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[...] in which we had any business or reason to be, but a sudden fog, and some error on the pilot 's part, were the cause. We were surrounded by banks, and rocks, and shoals of all kinds, but had happily drifted, it seemed, upon the only safe speck that was to be found thereabouts. Eased by this report, and by the assurance that the tide was past the ebb, we turned in at three o’clock in the morning.
(American Notes for General Circulation)
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[...] curtains, too, hung on slack strings across the lower panes; so that it looked like the parlour of a Lilliputian public-house, which had got afloat in a flood or some other water accident, and was drifting nobody knew where. But even in this chamber there was a rocking-chair. It would be impossible to get on anywhere, in America, without a rocking-chair. I am afraid to tell how many feet short this [...]
(American Notes for General Circulation)
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“ There was, ” said St. Clare, “ a time in my life when I had plans and hopes of doing something in this world, more than to float and drift. I had vague, indistinct yearnings to be a sort of emancipator,—to free my native land from this spot and stain. All young men have had such fever-fits, I suppose, some time,—but then — ”
(Uncle Tom’s Cabin)