Adrift vs Derelict - What's the difference?
adrift | derelict |
Floating at random.
(of a seaman) Absent from his watch.
Behind one's opponents, or below a required threshold in terms of score, number or position.
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* '>citation
* {{quote-news
, year=2014
, date=December 21
, author=Phil McNulty
, title=Liverpool 2 - 2 Arsenal
, work=BBC
Abandoned, forsake; given up or forsaken by the natural owner or guardian; (of a ship) abandoned at sea, dilapidated, neglected; (of a spacecraft) abandoned in outer space.
* Jeremy Taylor
* {{quote-news
, year=2011
, title=When and where did NASA's derelict satellite go down?
Negligent in performing a duty.
Lost; adrift; hence, wanting; careless; neglectful; unfaithful.
* Burke
* John Buchanan
Property abandoned by its former owner, especially a ship abandoned at sea.
* {{quote-book
, year=1907
, title=(The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses)
, author=Robert W. Service
, chapter=(The Cremation of Sam McGee)
, passage=Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; / It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May". / And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; / Then "Here", said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."}}
(dated) An abandoned or forsaken person; an outcast.
* 1911 Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax” (Norton 2005, p.1364):
A homeless and/or jobless person; a person who is (perceived as) negligent in their personal affairs and hygiene.
* 1988 , Jonathan D. Spence, The Question of Hu :
* 2002 , in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of D. H. Lawrence'', ''The Boy in the Bush , edited by Paul Eggert, page 22:
* 2004 , Katherine V. W. Stone, From Widgets to Digits: Employment Regulation , page 280:
As adjectives the difference between adrift and derelict
is that adrift is floating at random while derelict is abandoned, forsake; given up or forsaken by the natural owner or guardian; (of a ship) abandoned at sea, dilapidated, neglected; (of a spacecraft) abandoned in outer space.As an adverb adrift
is in a drifting condition; at the mercy of wind and waves.As a noun derelict is
property abandoned by its former owner, especially a ship abandoned at sea.adrift
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- So on the sea shall be set adrift . --Dryden.
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derelict
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- There was a derelict ship on the island.
- The affections which these exposed or derelict children bear to their mothers, have no grounds of nature or assiduity but civility and opinion.
citation
- They easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends; and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy.
- A government which is either unable or unwilling to redress such wrongs is derelict to its highest duties.
Synonyms
* (abandoned) abandonedNoun
(en noun)- A rather pathetic figure, the Lady Frances, a beautiful woman, still in fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange chance, the last derelict of what only twenty years ago was a goodly fleet.
- As they hunt, the Archers and Duval find many derelicts and ne'er-do-wells in many parts of Paris.
- If they're lazy derelicts and ne'er-do-wells she'll eat 'em up. But she's waiting for real men — British to the bone —
- We see the distinction at work when victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks are treated more generously than derelicts and drug addicts.
