drift apart
"drift-apart" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“drift apart” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To lose contact, to lose one's friendship or closeness.
Corpus desk
Index EN-drift-apart · drift apart · English
drift apart · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "D" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | drift apart |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “drift apart” in English
Rare enough to double-check
drift apart is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To lose contact, to lose one's friendship or closeness.".
No misspelling variants are generated for drift apart in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is drift apart, spelled D-R-I-F-T- -A-P-A-R-T.
Definition
- 1To lose contact, to lose one's friendship or closeness.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how drift apart appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
We used to be good friends but we drifted apart over the years.
To think of what we've been, and not to kiss again, seems like pretending it isn't ending, two friends drifting apart, two friends but one broken heart
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.