Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use drifting in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun

Drifting means moving aimlessly or at the mercy of external forces. Example: “The drifting seaweed went wherever the currents carried it.”

Examples of drifting by meaning

adjectiveMoving aimlessly or at the mercy of external forces.

  • The drifting seaweed went wherever the currents carried it.

nounThe act by which something drifts.

  • Still, she did not regret him, for nothing Ernest could have given her would have equalled the delight of those romantic driftings on the lake with Eden.2009, Mazo de la Roche, Whiteoak Heritage, page 204

More sentences with drifting

  • Amid the flutters of sunshine drifting through the dense canopy, I spotted my target.From the entry flutter
  • We were drifting on a dead calm sea for a third week in a row.From the entry dead calm
  • Whales feed on tiny plankton drifting in the ocean.From the entry plankton
  • The balloon was drifting in the breeze.From the entry drift
  • Most drift seeds are produced by tropical trees, and they can be found on distant beaches after drifting thousands of miles through ocean currents.From the entry drift seed
  • A plane might appear to be flying directly west while actually drifting several miles off course.2026 March 7, Sthitapragta Chakraborty, “America Once Built Giant Arrows to Guide Pilots Across the Country, and Some Still Exist Today”…. From the entry crosswind
  • Our railway has been drifting, leaderless, for a couple of years.2023 May 31, Nigel Harris, “GBR now! We have no Plan B”, in RAIL, number 984, page 3. From the entry leaderless
  • In other cases, they may be horizontal or diagonal, like drifting strands of glowing pearls.2021, Edith Widder, Below the Edge of Darkness: A Memoir of Exploring Light and ..., page 211. From the entry sea firefly
  • She was now drifting out into the Pacific out of sight of all help.2015, Bill Reed, IHE. From the entry temptless
  • They are surgings, fadings, explodings, collapsings, slowings down, drawing out or drifting, feelings.2013, Arnold I. Goldberg, Progress in Self Psychology. From the entry exploding
  • Or is it a product of our drifting in an ocean of overcommunication?2007 January 1, “Is It Who We Are, or How We Act? (5 Letters)”, in New York Times. From the entry overcommunication
  • Money-love produces many hurts, worries, pains of conscience, and hurtful temptations which result in spiritual drifting.2007, Dr. Aaron E. Lavender, Are you a Full Gospel Christian?. From the entry money-love
  • Shorty, on the drifting boat, sixty yards away now, was futilely throwing life-preservers toward us.1999, C. R. Gutermuth, “[Fishing Adventures] Life Hung on an 18-Thread”, in The World of Incredible Outdoor Adventures: Hair-raising…. From the entry life-preserver
  • He cleared his throat and began the tale of the planetless boy, and Kate listened, drowsy, drifting.1998, Dana Stabenow, Killing Grounds, →ISBN, page 222. From the entry planetless
  • The formel's voice lilted, drifting in and out of his thoughts."1987, Meredith Ann Pierce, Birth of the Firebringer, page 39. From the entry formel
  • Once the faint noise of a distant Navajo war whoop came drifting back through the scented darkness.1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist, page 20. From the entry war whoop
  • She was drifting more slowly now, her propeller fouled in kelp.1941, Emily Carr, chapter 18, in Klee Wyck. From the entry foul
  • The residue of concentration required to keep the car on the road lent these drifting thoughts a sense of urgentless purpose.2013, Geoff Dyer, The Search, →ISBN. From the entry urgentless
  • Behind him, through a wall of plate glass, gray Manhattan sulked steamily under a drifting pall of April rain.2008 January 13, Benjamin Black, “The Lemur”, in New York Times. From the entry steamily
  • Weak from drifting on the longest mosey ever rambled.2007 December 9, Xavier Renegade Angel, season 1, episode 6, spoken by Xavier (Vernon Chatman). From the entry ramble
  • I began drifting and presently encountered a man sitting on a khatiya, gazing passively into the scorched fields across the road.2005, Rahul Bhattacharya, Pundits from Pakistan. From the entry khatiya
  • He is drifting away from Zim’s homestead.2000, Zakes Mda, chapter 10, in The Heart of Redness, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 2002, page 230. From the entry aimfully
  • Drifting sparks floated up and out of the smokehole.1996, George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones. From the entry smokehole
  • Tunas and other pelagic fishes, especially mahimahi and ono (wahoo), are known to congregate under drifting objects, such as logs.1990, Hawaiian Archipelago and Johnston Island Exclusive Economic Zone, Proposed Marine Mineral Lease Sale: Environmental Impact…. From the entry ono
  • The drifting would have covered them, but something about the trail made me think someone else had passed.1989, Judith Whitelock McInerney, Judge Benjamin: The Superdog Surprise, page 38. From the entry snowprint
  • So-called icicle plants, their leaves thick and waxen, crept across the drifting dunes, adorning them with their own beautiful blooms.1970, Weldon Philip Keller, Under desert skies, page 231. From the entry icicle plant
  • The smoke hung lazily, drifting into vague patterns and then began to coalesce into a green houri without costume.1963, Lester del Rey, The Sky Is Falling. From the entry negligently
  • Nor perhaps would it so much have mattered if it were Dorothy alone who was (to say an Irishry) drifting apart.1906, Appleton’s Booklovers Magazine, volume 7, page 59. From the entry Irishry
  • Most polls give the left, divided between Socialists, ecologists and far-left parties, less than 30 percent of the vote in a France drifting rightward.2021 September 2, Roger Cohen, “The French Left Is in Disarray, but Here Comes Anne Hidalgo”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from…. From the entry rightward
  • The chants drifting down from the hillside came from a position among the trees from where half the pitch could be seen.2018 October 12, Daniel Taylor, “Marcus Rashford fluffs his lines in England’s eerie draw with Croatia”, in The Guardian (London). From the entry vantage point
  • Silfra is a fissure between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, which are drifting apart at a rate of 2cm each year.2015 August, Andrew Bain et al., edited by Karyn Noble, Ross Taylor, and Nick Mee, Ultimate Travel: Our List of the 500 Best Places to…. From the entry crystal-clear
  • United's initial response was bright, with Young's corner drifting untouched across the six-yard area and Van Persie just unable to keep an overhead kick down.2013 September 1, Phil McNulty, BBC Sport. From the entry overhead kick
  • Taiwan's Coast Guard found a drifting vessel with 43 Vietnamese stowaways on board off Xinfeng Township in Hsinchu County, a Coast Guard spokesman said Wednesday.2013 March 27, “43 Vietnamese stowaways found off Hsinchu”, in Focus Taiwan, archived from the original on 21 Jun 2023, Society. From the entry Xinfeng
  • Unlike drifting, set netting is done in a small skiff, not unlike a Boston Whaler, usually between fifteen and twenty feet in length.2008, Bill Carter, Red Summer, →ISBN, pages 15–16. From the entry set netting
  • The dashboard clock rolled over to midnight, and a song lyric popped into my head: lonely midnight drivers, drifting out to sea.2005, Michael Koryta, Tonight I Said Goodbye. From the entry roll over
  • And you also would unsleep to this, which is not quite like awakening because you were not quite sleeping yet, neither were you drifting.2001, Michael Burkard, Unsleeping: poems, page 80. From the entry unsleep
  • With a sponge we could continue drifting along, just reach inside, sop up some spongefuls, and squeeze them back into the river, where they belonged.1996, John Calvin Giddings, Demon River Apurímac. From the entry spongeful
  • The last thing she remembers before drifting off to sleep is seeing her roomie use a disposable razor to shave someone's head.1995, Cosmopolitan: Volume 219, United States: Hearst Corporation, page 127. From the entry roomie

Meaning of drifting

  1. adjective Moving aimlessly or at the mercy of external forces.
  2. adjective Without direction, focus, or goal.
  3. noun The act by which something drifts.

Full definition of drifting

Questions about drifting in a sentence

How do you use drifting in a sentence?
Drifting is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “The drifting seaweed went wherever the currents carried it.”
What is a short sentence with drifting?
“He is drifting away from Zim’s homestead.”
What does drifting mean?
Drifting means moving aimlessly or at the mercy of external forces.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: drifting (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 drifting in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/drifting. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.