Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use adrift in a sentence

18 example sentences · adjective, adverb

Adrift means floating at random. Example: “The team were six points adrift of their rivals.”

Examples of adrift by meaning

adjectiveBehind one's opponents, or below a required threshold in terms of score, number or position.

  • The team were six points adrift of their rivals.
  • The Czech Republic in 1994-95, with a pegged nominal exchange rate and nominal deposit rates of 7 percent, was several percentage points adrift of the interest parity condition.1996, David H. Begg, Monetary Policy in Central and Eastern Europe: Lessons After Half a Decade, International Monetary Fund, →ISBN
  • He did well, coming second, but Toyota and Mitsubishi were now neck-and-neck, with the Subaru team 38 points adrift of the leaders.2006, Brian Long, Subaru Impreza: The Road Car & WRC Story, →ISBN, page 56

More sentences with adrift

  • Captain Bligh and some loyal crewmen were cast adrift in the middle of the Pacific.From the entry cast adrift
  • We cast adrift the burning sloop to await its fate.From the entry cast adrift
  • The ship was unpiloted and adrift.From the entry unpiloted
  • Treasury could also ask why High Speed 2's finances are so adrift from what was promised.2024 September 4, Philip Haigh, “Can public-private partnerships be made to deliver?”, in RAIL, number 1017, page 53. From the entry oversee
  • Now and then Ketch almost felt he had a memory of being adrift on the sea.2021, Jodi Thomas [pseudonym; Jodi Koumalats], Dinner on Primrose Hill, Zebra Books, →ISBN, page 219. From the entry core memory
  • Sitting in a delikatessen, surrounded by the girls from her school, she feels “securely adrift” (p. 88).2011, David Trotter, “The Modernist novel”, in Michael Levenson, editor, The Cambridge Companion to Modernism, 2nd edition, Cambridge…. From the entry delikatessen
  • Only constant use of the pump kept the floorboards from going adrift.1943, MotorBoating, volume 71, number 1, page 134. From the entry bilge
  • Hills were waves, and houses cast adrift were wrecked on them.1931, Charles Fort, “Lo!”, in The Complete Books of Charles Fort, Dover Publications, published 1974, →ISBN, page 768. From the entry earthstorm
  • These give the book its basic form: a master of the universe adrift in the country he helped take to the cleaners.2018 September 13, Marcel Theroux, “Lake Success by Gary Shteyngart review – America’s new age of discontent”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry take to the cleaners
  • As he churned out early versions of the Quake III engine, the mappers and artists felt adrift, with no direction on what to pursue.2003, David Kushner, Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture. From the entry mapper
  • When she and her sister were away at Williamsburg, Nancy and I were more like founderers on a raft adrift in an angry sea.1997, Kelly Joyce Neff, Dear Companion: The Inner Life of Martha Jefferson, page 92. From the entry angry
  • Williams had a problem fitting his left rear tyre and that left Alonso only 3.1secs adrift when he rejoined from his final stop three laps later.2012 May 13, Andrew Benson, “Williams's Pastor Maldonado takes landmark Spanish Grand Prix win”, in BBC Sport. From the entry fit
  • The Mets were once the clipper ship of baseball, but a demoralizing 4-8 run against the American League East has left them adrift in the horse latitudes.2006 July 8, Bob Ekstrom, “One Amazin’ Debacle”, in Sports Central, retrieved 16 May 2013. From the entry horse latitudes
  • No, Yellow Hat had stupidly, I'm sure, jailed me in Fate's main vault!; he'd put a redhanded thief rover adrift but jailed in a warehouse of his main desire.1993, Steven Culbert, The Beautiful Woman Without Mercy &, The King of Scarecrows, →ISBN, page 54. From the entry redhanded
  • He had turned her adrift, neither a wife, widow, nor maid, and here she was, one of the most estimably lovable and noble women I have ever met.1901, Miles Franklin, “Aunt Helen’s Recipe”, in My Brilliant Career, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, page 70. From the entry estimably

Meaning of adrift

  1. adjective Floating at random.
  2. adjective Absent from his watch.
  3. adjective Behind one's opponents, or below a required threshold in terms of score, number or position.

Full definition of adrift

Questions about adrift in a sentence

How do you use adrift in a sentence?
Adrift is used as an adjective and adverb. For example: “The team were six points adrift of their rivals.”
What is a short sentence with adrift?
“The ship was unpiloted and adrift.”
What does adrift mean?
Adrift means floating at random.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: adrift (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use adrift in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/adrift. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.