drive away

verb

"drive-away" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“drive away” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
10
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see drive, away.

Corpus desk

Index EN-drive-away · drive away · English

drive away · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-5 5 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.

Key facts for drive away
PropertyValue
Headworddrive away
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters10
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “drive away” in English

drive awayfalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

drive away is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

No misspelling variants are generated for drive away in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is drive away, spelled D-R-I-V-E- -A-W-A-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see drive, away.
  2. 2
    To force someone or something to leave

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how drive away appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. This car's a real bargain, and you could drive it away this afternoon!
  2. I managed to drive the vultures away by shouting and waving my arms about.

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

How do you spell "drive away"?
"drive away" is spelled D-R-I-V-E- -A-W-A-Y.
What does "drive away" mean?
As a verb, "drive away" means: Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see drive, away.
What language does "drive away" come from?
"drive away" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list