driftwood

plural driftwoods · alternative drift wood · alternative drift-wood

1. uncountableusuallyFloating wood that drifts with the current of a body of water.

   Every wave on the Atlantic was like a dead seagull dragging its driftwood artillery from horizon to horizon.

   1967, Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America

   1 more example

   A person walks near driftwood and storm debris that washed up in front of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk amusement park.

   2023 January 16, “California’s flooding, in pictures”, in CNN, archived from the original on 17 Mar 2023

2. uncountableusuallySuch a piece of wood that has been cast ashore.

   We lit a driftwood fire to help keep the mosquitoes away. It was partially successful.

   1941 March 12, Charles A. Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, published 1970, page 461

   2 more examples

   Commonly the bear makes a stand in driftwood on a bank, or on a log that has fallen into or across a stream.

   1915 April 28, Enos A. Mills, The Rocky Mountain Wonderland, Houghton Mifflin, →LCCN, →OCLC, pages 198–199

   A few unreliable-looking boats were beached there, unpainted boats built largely of gray driftwood, or so it seemed to me.

   1987, Gene Wolfe, chapter LI, in The Urth of the New Sun, 1st US edition, New York: Tor Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 309