Word.ws English Dictionary

run adrift

run adrift verb: to continue without being steered (usually having been abandoned). (of a ship).

Verb

run adrift (third-person singular simple present runs adrift, present participle running adrift, simple past ran adrift, past participle run adrift)

  1. To continue without being steered (usually having been abandoned). (of a ship)
  2. (broadly, figuratively) To be aimless or pointless; to make no progress.

Forms of run adrift

third-person singular presentruns adrift
present participlerunning adrift
pastran adrift
past participlerun adrift

Questions about run adrift

What does run adrift mean?
Run adrift means to continue without being steered (usually having been abandoned). (of a ship).
What part of speech is run adrift?
Run adrift is a verb.
What is the past tense of run adrift?
The past tense of run adrift is ran adrift.

Words near run adrift in the dictionary

  1. run a temperature
  2. run a train
  3. run about
  4. run about with
  5. run across
  6. run adrift
  7. run afoul
  8. run afoul of
  9. run after
  10. run against
  11. run aground

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: run adrift (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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