drifting

1. not comparableMoving aimlessly or at the mercy of external forces.

   The drifting seaweed went wherever the currents carried it.

2. not comparableWithout direction, focus, or goal.

   [Lionel] Johnson was stern by nature, strong by intellect, and always, I think, deliberately picked his company, but [Ernest] Dowson seemed gentle, affectionate, drifting.

   1922, W[illiam] B[utler] Yeats, chapter VIII, in The Trembling of the Veil, London: Privately printed for subscribers only by T[homas] Werner Laurie, Ltd., →OCLC, book IV (The Tragic Generation), page 187

   1 more example

   There is nothing more expressive of a barbarous and stupid lack of culture than the half-unconscious attitude so many of us slip into, of taking for granted, when we see weak, neurotic, helpless, drifting, unhappy people, that it is by reason of some special merit in us or by reason of some especial favour towards us that the gods have given us an advantage over such persons.

   1930, John Cowper Powys, chapter X, in The Meaning of Culture

plural driftings

1. countableuncountableThe 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

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   True, there had been some heavy falls of snow and some of the roads had become blocked, while north of Inverness there was drifting that held up traffic here and there, but things were no worse than are expected in January.

   1960 March, “The January blizzard in the North-East of Scotland”, in Trains Illustrated, page 137

2. countableuncountableThat which drifts.

   [W]ith hollow eyes / Many all day in dazzling river stood, / To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.

   1820, John Keats, “Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil. A Story from Boccaccio.”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC, stanza XIV, page 56

3. countableuncountablehobbiesA driving technique where the driver intentionally oversteers, causing loss of traction in the rear wheels, while maintaining control from entry to exit of a corner.

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of drift