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drifting condition; at the mercy of wind and waves. Also fig. So on the sea shall be set adrift. Dryden. Were from their daily labor turned adrift. Wordsworth.

Unfixed; moving without guide or control; adrift; as, our affairs are all afloat.

Lost; adrift; hence, wanting; careless; neglectful; unfaithful. They easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his [Chatham's] friends; and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy. Burke. A government which is either unable or unwilling to redres…

lately slaughtered. Sir W. Scott. Bluff Harry broke into the spence, And turned the cowls adrift. Tennyson.

A quantity of explosives anchored in a channel, beneath the water, or set adrift in a current, and so arranged that they will be exploded when touched by a vessel, or when an electric circuit is closed by an operator on shore.

eat with neglect or indifference. -- To turn a corner, to go round a corner. -- To turn adrift, to cast off, to cease to care for. -- To turn a flange (Mech.), to form a flange on, as around a metal sheet or boiler plate, by stretching, bending, and hammering, or rolling the metal. -- To turn against. (a) To direct…