How to Use adrift in a Sentence

adrift

adverb or adjective
  • We are left adrift, as if waiting to find that safe spot of dry land.
    — Jose Solís, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2020
  • While daughters flocked to nursing, a job that couldn’t move overseas, sons seemed adrift.
    — Written By Farah Stockman; Photographs By Alyssa Schukar, New York Times, 14 Oct. 2017
  • Grown women who’d been cast adrift on oceans of post-boom cocktail wear hailed her as a savior.
    — Sarah Mower, Vogue, 22 Dec. 2017
  • Many Egyptians felt their country was adrift, led by an old man who was not up to the job.
    — The Economist, 22 Aug. 2019
  • But engaging young men who have been left adrift has proven to be challenging.
    — Jessica Anderson, Washington Post, 4 Dec. 2019
  • But engaging young men who have been left adrift has proven to be challenging work.
    — Jessica Anderson, baltimoresun.com, 21 Nov. 2019
  • Like a planet unmoored from its star, your post-breakup self can feel out-of-orbit and adrift in space.
    — Markham Heid, Time, 20 Sep. 2017
  • Roberts, working with a much larger scenic and visual palette this time, seems adrift.
    — Katie Walsh, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Aug. 2019
  • Yes, India’s fifth-largest private-sector lender, can’t be left adrift much longer.
    — Andy Mukherjee | Bloomberg, Washington Post, 11 Dec. 2019
  • Combined with this place called Open Source, that had kind of had been a little bit adrift maybe.
    — CBS News, 1 Jan. 2020
  • Games are a steady currency in a city where steadiness is currently adrift.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 3 Sep. 2017
  • Rosen's presence provides clarity for a franchise that looked adrift just a few months ago.
    — The Heat Index, azcentral, 30 Apr. 2018
  • The towline snapped and the bow section of the New Carissa was again adrift at sea.
    — oregonlive, 4 Feb. 2020
  • Small firms that relied on WhatsApp to stay in touch with customers would be cast adrift.
    — The Economist, 4 July 2019
  • In three attacks, coalition forces did not attempt to rescue survivors adrift at sea, and many drowned, the group said.
    — Missy Ryan, BostonGlobe.com, 21 Aug. 2019
  • Meanwhile, a string of departures at the highest level of the agency has left it adrift.
    — Anchorage Daily News, 5 May 2018
  • William Bligh and 18 sailors adrift in a launch in the South Pacific.
    — baltimoresun.com, 28 Apr. 2018
  • Instead, there could be 50 billion rogue planets are adrift in the Milky Way.
    — Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, 11 Mar. 2019
  • Co-working spaces haven’t been spared, and the freelancers who relied on them for desk space and other resources have been left adrift.
    — Shanika Hillocks, Bon Appétit, 23 Mar. 2020
  • Tan, who wrote the screenplay for the original Shirkers and starred in it, was left adrift, angry and confused.
    — Alissa Wilkinson, Vox, 26 Oct. 2018
  • That program is adrift at sea, set to play one more season in the AAC and explore three options.
    — Mike Anthony, courant.com, 24 June 2019
  • Their lukewarm season began adrift, with eight losses in 11 games on the West Coast.
    — Tyler Kepner, New York Times, 8 Sep. 2019
  • The Sanchi, which had been adrift and ablaze after crashing into a freighter, sank Sunday in the worst oil ship disaster in decades.
    — Washington Post, 17 Jan. 2018
  • Fire and police units are at the scene of a barge accident that set several boats adrift or sinking in the Ohio River.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 Oct. 2019
  • In three attacks, coalition forces did not attempt to rescue survivors adrift at sea, and many drowned, HRW said.
    — Samy Magdy, chicagotribune.com, 21 Aug. 2019
  • One year after it was set adrift off the North Carolina coast, a boy’s message in a bottle has been found in France.
    — Mark Price, charlotteobserver, 11 Oct. 2017
  • Of the 900 or so men who made it off the ship alive, only about a third survived to meet the rescue ships that finally arrived on their fifth night adrift.
    — Jacque Smith, CNN, 30 Sep. 2017
  • The migrants boarded the Aquarius from six overcrowded boats adrift in the central Mediterranean.
    — Gaia Pianigiani, BostonGlobe.com, 11 June 2018
  • The Saints' rudderless ship left adrift in Lake Pontchartrain at the season's onset will again head up to the state of a thousand lakes.
    — Larry Holder, NOLA.com, 12 Jan. 2018
  • But most of the ships lost, carrying more than 4,000 men, were adrift farther out at sea, and went down in a storm that came up in the afternoon of the battle.
    — Mark Munn, The Conversation, 17 Apr. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'adrift.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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