drifts

Snow piles up

Drifts are accumulations of snow, sand, or other material piled up by wind: The drifts blocked the road.

The word also names the plural of drift in its other senses—a gradual movement or shift (the drifts of public opinion), the general meaning of speech (I catch your drift), or a state of aimless wandering (He fell into one of his drifts).

As a verb form, drifts describes slow, undirected movement: The boat drifts downstream, Her attention drifts during meetings.

accumulation

sandbank

Underwater sand accumulation

duneWind-formed sand ridge
snowbankAccumulated frozen precipitation pile
pileAccumulated mass of objects

mound · heap · deposit · sediment · silt · debris · leaves · ash · dust · sawdust

aimlessness

purposeless

Lacking aim or intention

directionlessWithout aim or guidance
aimlessHaving no direction
wanderingTraveling with no fixed course

floating · meandering · rootless · untethered · listless · unfocused · idle · lost · unsettled · nomadic

movement

floats

Remains on surface

glidesMoves smoothly, frictionlessly
wandersMoves without fixed course
meandersWinds without purpose

roams · sails · coasts · slides · slips · veers · strays · migrates · travels · shifts

currents

ocean

Massive saltwater body

tideOcean's cyclical swell
currentDirected flow of charge
streamSteady continuous flow

flow · eddy · riptide · undertow · seaweed · kelp · flotsam · ice · iceberg · debris

deviation

strays

Wanders or homeless animals

veersTurns off course
divergesMoves apart from
departsGoes away from

wanders · digresses · deviates · shifts · moves · slides · slips · tangent · off-course · off-topic

drifts

sandbank

purposeless

floats

ocean

strays

drifts

Opposites

Phrases

Categories

Family