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 May 6, 2026) - To lose contact, to lose one's friendship or closeness.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | drift apart |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “drift apart” sits in English frequency
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.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “drift apart”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-R-I-F-T- -A-P-A-R-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.