dérive

noun

A revolutionary strategy proposed in 1956 by Guy Debord: a mode of experimental behaviour linked to the conditions of urban society, in which participants drop their everyday relations and enter into spontaneous encounters and interactions.

OriginFrench dérive →
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Meanings

noundérive (plural dérives)

plural dérives

  1. A revolutionary strategy proposed in 1956 by Guy Debord: a mode of experimental behaviour linked to the conditions of urban society, in which participants drop their everyday relations and enter into spontaneous encounters and interactions.

    Thus, a kind of dérive for the network: a process of psychogeography intended to discover not some reflection of my own pathology, but that of a globalised, digital collective.

    2018, James Bridle, “Complexity”, in The New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future, Verso Books, →ISBN, page 104

Origin

  1. Frenchdérive
  2. Frenchdérive
  3. Englishdérive

Borrowed from French dérive (“drift”).

More words from French

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

dérive. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/d%C3%A9rive

MLA

“dérive.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/d%C3%A9rive. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dérive,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/d%C3%A9rive.

Source: dérive on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.