the.com/drifter
a person whose only fixed address is the horizon and whose only deadline is sunset.
means A person who moves from place to place without a permanent home, steady job, or settled purpose.
from From the verb 'drift,' which traces back to the same Germanic root as 'drive' — the idea being not what is driven, but the slow, aimless motion of what is carried along: snow drifting into banks, boats drifting on a current. By the 19th century 'drift' had drifted from weather and water onto people, and 'drifter' settled in as American English for someone moving with no fixed course — fittingly, a word about going nowhere in particular, built from a word for being pushed.
- origin
- Term boomed during 1930s Dust Bowl migrations
- old west
- Once feared as outlaws between honest jobs
- physics cousin
- Cars drift sideways; people drift everywhere
- folk hero
- Inspired countless lone-stranger Westerns and ballads
- hidden rule
- Drifting requires more discipline than settling down
ken block — professional rally driver who popularized drifting in mainstream motorsports through gymkhana videos starting 2009
formula d — professional drifting competition series founded 2004 in north america with events across multiple cities
okusan drift circuit — legendary japanese mountain road near tokyo where underground drifting culture originated in the 1990s