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Definitions

drifter

[drif-ter] / ˈdrɪf tər /


Example Sentences

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The tag was also, incidentally, a play on “The Blue Dahlia,” a 1946 movie written by Raymond Chandler and starring Veronica Lake as a plucky drifter who helps the hero track down his wife’s murderer.

From The Wall Street Journal Jan. 23, 2026

A drifter, he lived in Portugal's Algarve region, on and off, for years.

From BBC May 9, 2025

“A man makes his choices,” Baldwin’s crusty, guilt-ridden drifter says to his grandkid at one point.

From Los Angeles Times May 2, 2025

Lyonne plays Charlie Cale, a Vegas cocktail waitress turned drifter with a near-superhuman ability to deduce whether someone is lying.

From Salon Jan. 25, 2023

Or it could be a drifter who had come through town and they’d buried him where he’d dropped dead.

From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool

In “Moby-Dick,” Herman Melville describes Nantucket as an “ant hill in the sea,” an isolated outpost for whalers and drifters.

From The Wall Street Journal Jun. 20, 2026

Collected by gliders, floats and drifters, these instruments provide valuable information about the most turbulent region of the hurricane environment, called the boundary layer, where the air meets the ocean.

From BBC Aug. 29, 2025

Juliette Lewis has played murderers, drifters, alcoholics, punk rockers, Reiki healers and roller-derby captains.

From Los Angeles Times Jan. 23, 2025

He welcomed her into his commune of misfits and drifters, which called itself the Family and coalesced at a ranch outside of Los Angeles, where she found herself captivated by his wild-eyed charisma.

From Washington Post Feb. 28, 2023

Come November, as the weather turns cold across the rest of the country, some five thousand snowbirds and drifters and sundry vagabonds congregate in this otherworldly setting to live on the cheap under the sun.

From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer




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