driftern.
/ˈdrɪftə/, U.S. /ˈdrɪftər/ a. gen. One who or that which drifts.
b. Mining. (a) A miner who excavates drifts (see drift n. 15); (b) a heavy, mounted percussion drill driven by compressed air, used in mining for horizontal working; also drifter drill.
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society > occupation and work > worker > workers according to type of work > manual or industrial worker > miner > [noun] > other specific mine workers
chipper1747
blaster1776
tributor1778
striker1824
shifter1830
bandsman1852
back-shift1860
drifter1864
metal man1883
stower1886
wagoner1886
hard rock1922
beacher1923
1864 Daily Tel. 16 Aug. The lead of rich pay dirt was lost for a short time, but..the drifters found it again.
1918 R. Peele Mining Engineers' Handbk. 1112 Drifters.
1921 Engin. & Mining Jrnl. 27 Aug. 340/1 Modern rock-drilling appliances of the hammer type fall into three well-marked groups, namely, the drifter..; the plugger..; and the stoper.
1946 G. J. Young Elem. Mining (ed. 4) xiv. 539 For work at the face 3½-in. drifter drills..are required.
1951 S. Higham Introd. Metallif. Mining vii. 88 When rapid advance is desired, rigged drifters are used.
c. A boat or man engaged in fishing with a drift-net. Also, a fishing-vessel or other small boat used by the Royal Navy, esp. in wartime, for patrolling, conveying stores, etc.
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society > travel > travel by water > vessel, ship, or boat > fishing vessel > [noun] > drifter
drover1584
drivera1643
drift-boat1851
drifter1883
1883 Great Internat. Fisheries Exhib. Catal. 79 Model of Drifter for Herring Fisheries.
1887 Daily News 27 Sept. 4/6 The proposal..that trawlers should fish only in the daytime, and drifters only during the nighttime.
1916 In Northern Mists xxiv. 97 Like all these North Sea craft, trawlers, drifters, and the rest, she is built with bows nearly twice as high out of the water as the after-part.
1917 Times 19 May 6/4 Light cruisers..raided the Allied drifter line in the Adriatic and succeeded in sinking 14 British drifters.
1923 Man. Seamanship II. 19 In home waters capital ships are generally supplied with a drifter.
1961 W. Granville & R. A. Kelly Inshore Heroes x. 108 In addition to H.M.S. Midge, the Coastal Forces' base, to which the M.L.s were attached, there was the base for trawlers, drifters, armed yachts and other auxiliary craft employed on anti-submarine or mine-clearance work.
d. An object which is allowed to float freely in the sea to determine ocean-currents; a drift-bottle.
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1897 T. W. Fulton in Sc. Geogr. Mag. 13 637 Surface currents of the North Sea..Drifters..were used, one-ounce wide-mouthed bottles.
1900 Geogr. Jrnl. 15 275 On the voyage from Iceland to Jan Mayen in 1896 twenty drifters were thrown overboard.
e. A man following an aimless, irresolute, or vagrant way of life.
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society > travel > aspects of travel > travel from place to place > [noun] > without fixed aim or wandering > wanderer > one given to wandering
starter1578
groyl1582
rolling stone1598
floater1859
butterfly1876
roll-about1893
drifter1908
1908 Daily Chron. 28 Sept. 4/7 The drifter drifts to California, and brings up there because..he can drift no further.
1922 Short Stories Feb. 25/1 The trampers ain't all hoboes, some of 'em being just drifters.
1925 W. Deeping Sorrell & Son xxviii. 275 For months he had had a sense of drifting, and his character was not that of a drifter.
1971 Guardian 14 June 9/1 A drifter with nothing but the clothes he stands up in.
f. A wind causing snow to drift.
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the world > the earth > weather and the atmosphere > weather > wind > [noun] > driving wind > causing snow to drift
drifter1922
1922 R. J. Flaherty My Eskimo Friends 8 Then came snow, the winter's first big ‘drifter’, and for three days there was no land or sea or sky.
1924 A. J. Small Frozen Gold ii. 49 A confused..blur of whining blizzards, roaring drifters, flat calm cold-snaps.
1970 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 28 Sept. 19/8 Winds ranging from a drifter to 15 knots.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1897; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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