adrift


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cast adrift

1. Literally, of a ship or sailors, to float on a body of water without control or anchorage. The team was cast adrift in the Atlantic for 17 days before a rescue party found them.
2. To be let go, freed, or lost. Likened to a ship that drifts without an anchor or moorings to a dock. When I arrived in the country, I found myself cast adrift in a city I didn't know, among people whose language I couldn't speak. With my inheritance money, I was cast adrift to pursue whatever life I fancied.
3. To leave someone to float on a body of water without control or anchorage. In this usage, a noun or pronoun is used between "cast" and "adrift." That awful storm cast us adrift in the Atlantic for 17 days before a rescue party found us.
4. To let someone go or cause them to be freed or lost; to no longer support someone. Likened to a ship that is left to drift without an anchor or moorings to a dock. In this usage, a noun or pronoun is used between "cast" and "adrift." I think it's about time that we cast the extremists of the party adrift. Her parents cut her adrift after they found drugs in her room.
See also: adrift, cast

be cut adrift

To be detached or cut off from something. Likened to a boat having its mooring cut so that it drifts freely in the water. She was cut adrift after her parents found drugs in her room and kicked her out of the house.
See also: adrift, cut

cut adrift

To abandon or set free. Likened to a boat having its mooring cut so that it drifts freely in the water. I think it's about time that we cut adrift the extremists of the party.
See also: adrift, cut

cast loose

Also, cast adrift. Let go, freed, as in After Rob was suspended from boarding school, he was cast loose with nowhere to go, or Selling her home meant she was cast adrift with no financial ties or responsibilities. Originally a nautical term for releasing a vessel, this idiom was being used figuratively by the late 1500s.
See also: cast, loose

cut adrift

Separated or detached; freed. For example, The dissenters were cut adrift from the denomination. This expression alludes to cutting the rope of a floating vessel so that it drifts without direction or purpose. The figurative use of adrift dates from the late 1600s.
See also: adrift, cut

cast (or cut) someone adrift

1 leave someone in a boat or other craft which has nothing to secure or guide it. 2 abandon or isolate someone.
2 1998 Oldie The various dissenting movements…should be cut adrift and left to their own devices.
See also: adrift, cast, someone
References in periodicals archive ?
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But the fire left the cruise liner "without propulsion" meaning the ship, with 636 passengers and 413 crew, was adrift in the sea because the engines were not working.
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The 15-ton fishing boat, which was manned by a crew of six, lost contact after leaving Hachinohe port Sunday for fishing, and its chief engineer Isamu Nakata, 64, was found adrift on a raft Tuesday but was pronounced dead later at a hospital.
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He carded a level par 72 that included three birdies to leave him 2 shots adrift.
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The authors of Academically Adrift say the findings are not surprising given that, at least in these two formative years, learning takes a back seat to socializing.
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Carles Casas' score feels a little adrift itself, ranging from classical music through tinkly piano to African-influenced sounds, but a recurring melody is haunting.
Adrift
Surrey's James Heath was left to rue his level-par opening round at the TCL Classic in Sanya after finishing six shots adrift of Thailand's Chapchai Nirat at the Yalong Bay Golf Club.
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Miles from shore, a cataclysmic hurricane sets them adrift and fighting for their lives, and Jenny must find the courage within herself to chart a new course through troubled waters.
Adrift
THE CORRESPONDENT IN "The Open Boat," a short story published by Stephen Crane in 1898, poses the following question as he and three companions are adrift at sea after a shipwreck: "If I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?
Contemplating sand and trees in "The Open Boat" and the Odyssey
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