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Drift vs Mass - What's the difference?

drift | mass | Synonyms |

Drift is a synonym of mass.


As a verb drift

is drifting.

As a noun mass is

march.

drift

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • (label) Movement; that which moves or is moved.
  • # (label) A driving; a violent movement.
  • #* 1332 , (King Alisaunder) (1332)
  • The dragon drew him [self] away with drift of his wings.
  • # Course or direction along which anything is driven; setting.
  • #* (Richard Hakluyt) (c.1552-1616)
  • Our drift was south.
  • # That which is driven, forced, or urged along.
  • #*{{quote-book, year=1892, author=(James Yoxall)
  • , chapter=5, title= The Lonely Pyramid , passage=The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom.
  • # Anything driven at random.
  • #* (John Dryden) (1631-1700)
  • Some loga useless drift .
  • # A mass of matter which has been driven or forced onward together in a body, or thrown together in a heap, etc., especially by wind or water.
  • #* (Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)
  • Drifts of rising dust involve the sky.
  • #* Kane
  • We got the brig a good bed in the rushing drift [of ice].
  • # The distance through which a current flows in a given time.
  • # A drove or flock, as of cattle, sheep, birds.
  • #* (Thomas Fuller) (1606-1661)
  • cattle coming over the bridge (with their great drift doing much damage to the high ways)
  • # A collection of loose earth and rocks, or boulders, which have been distributed over large portions of the earth's surface, especially in latitudes north of forty degrees, by the retreat of continental glaciers, such as that which buries former river valleys and creates young river valleys.
  • #* 1867 , E. Andrews, "Observations on the Glacial Drift beneath the bed of Lake Michigan," American Journal of Science and Arts? , vol. 43, nos. 127-129, page 75:
  • It is there seen that at a distance from the valleys of streams, the old glacial drift usually comes to the surface, and often rises into considerable eminences.
  • # Driftwood included in flotsam washed up onto the beach.
  • The act or motion of drifting; the force which impels or drives; an overpowering influence or impulse.
  • * (Robert South) (1634–1716)
  • A bad man, being under the drift of any passion, will follow the impulse of it till something interpose.
  • A place (a ford) along a river where the water is shallow enough to permit crossing to the opposite side.
  • The tendency of an act, argument, course of conduct, or the like; object aimed at or intended; intention; hence, also, import or meaning of a sentence or discourse; aim.
  • * 1977 , (w), (The Canterbury Tales) , Penguin Classics, p. 316:
  • 'Besides, you lack the brains to catch my drift . / If I explained you wouldn't understand.'
  • * (Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
  • He has made the drift of the whole poem a compliment on his country in general.
  • * Sir (Walter Scott) (1771-1832)
  • Now thou knowest my drift .
  • (architecture) The horizontal thrust or pressure of an arch or vault upon the abutments.
  • (Knight)
  • (label) A tool.
  • # A slightly tapered tool of steel for enlarging or shaping a hole in metal, by being forced or driven into or through it; a broach.
  • # A tool used in driving down compactly the composition contained in a rocket, or like firework.
  • A deviation from the line of fire, peculiar to oblong projectiles.
  • (label) A passage driven or cut between shaft and shaft; a driftway; a small subterranean gallery; an adit or tunnel.
  • (label) Movement.
  • # The angle which the line of a ship's motion makes with the meridian, in drifting.
  • # The distance to which a vessel is carried off from her desired course by the wind, currents, or other causes.
  • # The place in a deep-waisted vessel where the sheer is raised and the rail is cut off, and usually terminated with a scroll, or driftpiece.
  • # The distance between the two blocks of a tackle.
  • # The difference between the size of a bolt and the hole into which it is driven, or between the circumference of a hoop and that of the mast on which it is to be driven.
  • (label) A sideways movement of the ball through the air, when bowled by a spin bowler.
  • Derived terms

    * driftage * driftal * drift-anchor * drift-bolt * drift-current * drift ice * driftland * driftless * drift-mining * drift-net * drift-sail * driftway * driftweed * driftwood * drifty

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (label) To move slowly, especially pushed by currents of water, air, etc.
  • *, chapter=11
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=One day I was out in the barn and he drifted in. I was currying the horse and he set down on the wheelbarrow and begun to ask questions.}}
  • (label) To move haphazardly without any destination.
  • (label) To deviate gently from the intended direction of travel.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011, date=January 15, author=Saj Chowdhury, work=BBC
  • , title= Man City 4-3 Wolves , passage=Midway through the half, Argentine Tevez did begin to drift inside in order to exert his influence but by this stage Mick McCarthy's side had gone 1-0 up and looked comfortable.}}
  • (label) To drive or carry, as currents do a floating body.
  • (label) To drive into heaps.
  • (label) To accumulate in heaps by the force of wind; to be driven into heaps.
  • To make a drift; to examine a vein or ledge for the purpose of ascertaining the presence of metals or ores; to follow a vein; to prospect.
  • To enlarge or shape, as a hole, with a drift.
  • To oversteer a vehicle, causing loss of traction, while maintaining control from entry to exit of a corner. See .
  • Derived terms

    * bedrift * drift along * drift apart * drift off

    mass

    English

    Etymology 1

    In late (etyl) (circa 1400) as masse in the sense of "lump, quantity of matter", from (etyl) masse, in (etyl) attested from the 11th century, via late (etyl) . The sense of "a large number or quantity" arises circa 1580. The scientific sense is from 1687 (as Latin massa) in the works of , with the first English use (as mass) occurring in 1704.

    Noun

  • (label) Matter, material.
  • # A quantity of matter cohering together so as to make one body, or an aggregation of particles or things which collectively make one body or quantity, usually of considerable size; as, a mass of ore, metal, sand, or water.
  • #* 1718 [1704], (w), (Opticks), Second Edition:
  • And if it were not for the?e Principles the Bodies of the Earth, Planets, Comets, Sun, and all things in them would grow cold and freeze, and become inactive Ma??es ; .
  • #* 1821 , (George Buchanan) (Latin original Rerum Scoticarum Historia'', 1582), translator not named, ''The History of Scotland, from the Earliest Accounts of that Nation, to the Reign of King James VI , Volume 1, page 133,
  • and because a deep mass of continual sea is slower stirred to rage.
  • # (label) Precious metal, especially gold or silver.
  • #* 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , IV.10:
  • Right in the midst the Goddesse selfe did stand / Upon an altar of some costly masse […].
  • # (label) The quantity of matter which a body contains, irrespective of its bulk or volume. It is one of four fundamental properties of matter. It is measured in kilograms in the SI system of measurement.
  • # (label) A medicinal substance made into a cohesive, homogeneous lump, of consistency suitable for making pills; as, blue mass.
  • # (label) A palpable or visible abnormal globular structure; a tumor.
  • # (label) Excess body weight, especially in the form of muscle hypertrophy.
  • #* 1988 , Steve Holman, "Christian Conquers Columbus", 47 (6): 28-34.
  • After all, muscle maniacs go "ga ga" over mass no matter how it's presented.
  • A large quantity; a sum.
  • * 1829 , Sir (Walter Raleigh), The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, Kt , Volume VIII,
  • he hath discovered to me the way to five or six of the richest mines which the Spaniard hath, and whence all the mass of gold that comes into Spain in effect is drawn.
  • * 1869 , Alexander George Richey, Lectures on the History of Ireland: Down to A. D. 1534 , page 204,
  • For though he had spent a huge mass of treasure in transporting his army, .
  • (label) Large in number.
  • # Bulk; magnitude; body; size.
  • #* c.1599-1601 , (William Shakespeare), , Act 4, Scene 4,
  • Witness this army of such mass and charge / Led by a delicate and tender prince,
  • # The principal part; the main body.
  • #* 1881 , (Thucydides), (Benjamin Jowett) Thucydides translated into English , Volume 1, page 310,
  • Night closed upon the pursuit, and aided the mass of the fugitives in their escape.
  • # A large body of individuals, especially persons.
  • # (label) The lower classes of persons.
  • See also
    * Customary units: slug, pound, ounce, long ton (1.12 short tons), short ton (commonly used) * Metric units: gram (g), kilogram (kg), metric ton
    Derived terms
    * blue mass * critical mass * land mass, landmass * mass burial * mass center * mass copper * mass culture * mass destruction * mass defect * mass energy * mass extinction * mass flow * mass funeral * mass grave * mass hysteria * mass market * mass media * mass medium * mass murder * mass murderer * mass noun * mass number * mass of maneuver * mass produce * mass production * mass shift * mass spectrometer * mass spectrometry * mass starvation * mass surveillance * mass transfer * mass transit * mass transportation * mass wasting * Planck mass * reduced mass * the masses

    Verb

    (es)
  • To form or collect into a mass; to form into a collective body; to bring together into masses; to assemble.
  • * 1829 , William Burke, John Macnee, Trial of William Burke and Helen M'Dougal: Before the High Court of Judiciary, William Hare ,
  • They would unavoidably mix up the whole of these declarations, and mass them together, although the Judge might direct the Jury not to do so.
  • * 1857 , Edward Henry Nolan, The Illustrated History of the War against Russia , Parts 93-111, page 432,
  • Every bend on the hill had acted like a funnel to mass them together in this peculiar way.
  • * 1869 , H. P. Robinson, Pictorial Effect in Photography: Being Hints on Composition and Chiariscuro for Photographers ,
  • Where there is too great a repetition of forms, light and shade will break them up or mass them together.
  • To have a certain mass.
  • I mass 70 kilograms

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Involving a mass of things; concerning a large quantity or number.
  • There is evidence of mass extinctions in the distant past.
  • * 1988 , V. V. Zagladin, Vitaly Baskakov, International Working Class and Communist Movement: Historical Record, 1830s to Mid-1940s , page 236,
  • The national liberation movement had not yet developed to a sufficiently mass scale.
  • * 1989 , Creighton Peden, Larry E. Axel (editors), God, Values, and Empiricism: Issues in Philosophical Theology , page 2,
  • With perhaps unprecedented magnitude and clarity, Auschwitz brings theologians and philosophers face to face with the facts of suffering on an incredibly mass scale, with issues poignantly raised concerning the absence of divine intervention or the inadequacies of divine power or benevolence; .
  • * 2010 , John Horne, A Companion to World War I , page 159,
  • The air arms did more than provide the warring nations with individual heroes, for their individual exploits occurred within the context of an increasingly mass aerial effort in a war of the masses.
  • Involving a mass of people; of, for, or by the masses.
  • Mass unemployment resulted from the financial collapse.
  • * 1958 , Child Welfare, volume 37, page 2:
  • Every agency is sold on use of mass' media today — or at least, it thinks it is — and what can be "' masser " than television?
  • * 1970 , James Wilson White, The S?kagakkai and Mass Society , page 3,
  • While agreeing with Bell on the unlikelihood that any fully mass — in the sense of atomized and alienated — society has ever existed,5 I believe that at any point in time, in any social system, some elements may be characterized as "masses."
  • * 1974 , Edward Abraham Cohn, The Political Economy of Environmental Enhancement , page 91:
  • Undoubtedly this is the case; at least it is "masser " than in Pinchot's time.
  • * 1999 December, Sara Miles, Rebel with a Cause'', in '' , page 132,
  • But it also highlights the changes that have taken place in gay and AIDS activism, and the way that a formerly mass movement has been recast.
  • * 2000 , Howie Klein, Queer as role models'', in ''The Advocate , number 825, 21 November 2000, page 9:
  • The director didn't make the images up; they're there, but in putting that one slice of gay life into the massest' of ' mass media — the amoral promiscuity, the drug and alcohol abuse, the stereotyped flamboyance and campiness, the bitchy queeniness and flimsy values — something very dangerous happens [...]
  • * 2001 , Brian Moeran. Asian Media Productions , page 13:
  • [...] if only because it promises the ‘massest'’ of ' mass markets.
  • * 2004 , John R. Hall, Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History , page 79,
  • Finally, in the past century, secular culture itself has undergone a transition from predominantly folk styles to an overwhelmingly mass culture, .
  • * 2007 , Thomas Peele, Queer popular culture: literature, media, film, and television , page 11:
  • As a right, we come to expect it, and that happens through the mass' media, the ' massest of which, by far, is television.

    Derived terms

    * mass extinction

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) masse, from (etyl) . More at (l).

    Noun

    (es)
  • (Christianity) The Eucharist, now especially in Roman Catholicism.
  • (Christianity) Celebration of the Eucharist.
  • The sacrament of the Eucharist.
  • A musical setting of parts of the mass.
  • Verb

    (es)
  • (obsolete) To celebrate mass.
  • (Hooker)

    Anagrams

    * *