be adrift

1. 1.

   be in motion due to some air or water current

   “The leaves were blowing in the wind”

   “the boat drifted on the lake”

   “The sailboat was adrift on the open sea”

   “the shipwrecked boat drifted away from the shore”

   Synonymsfloatdriftblow

   Broadertravel

   Narrowerwafttidestream

Questions about be adrift

What does be adrift mean?

be adrift means "be in motion due to some air or water current".

What is another word for be adrift?

Close synonyms include float, drift, blow. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is be adrift a common word?

be adrift is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.