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drift has 23 distinct synonyms spread across 8 of its 17 senses. Each sense below keeps its own list, because a synonym belongs to a meaning and not to a word: swapping one sense's substitute into another sense's sentence is how a thesaurus makes writing worse. WordNet records no antonym for it — antonymy is a relation between word forms rather than concepts, so it is deliberately sparse.
Counts are distinct word forms across every sense. A synonym that appears under three senses is counted once here and shown three times below, under each sense it belongs to.
vary or move from a fixed point or course
“stock prices are drifting higher”
move in an unhurried fashion
“The unknown young man drifted among the invited guests”
cause to be carried by a current
“drift the boats downstream”
drive slowly and far afield for grazing
“drift the cattle herds westwards”
be subject to fluctuation
“The stock market drifted upward”
be piled up in banks or heaps by the force of wind or a current
“snow drifting several feet high”
the gradual departure from an intended course due to external influences (as a ship or plane)
Synonyms, antonyms and the broader and narrower relations for drift come from Princeton University’s WordNet. Full sources and licences.
a process of linguistic change over a period of time
a general tendency to change (as of opinion)
“not openly liberal but that is the trend of the book”
a horizontal (or nearly horizontal) passageway in a mine
“they dug a drift parallel with the vein”