overdrift

English

Etymology

over- +‎ drift

Adjective

overdrift (not comparable)

1. (of a windmill) Having gearing that turns the millstone by means of a pole that rises above it.
   • 1979, Martin Brunnarius, The windmills of Sussex, page 11:

     The overdrift method in smock mills may be seen at Punnetts Town, and the underdrift at Shipley.

   • 1996, Richard Leslie Hills, Power from Wind: A History of Windmill Technology, →ISBN, page 298:

     In an overdrift mill this gear is mounted on the quant, in an underdrift mill on the stone spindle.

   • 2011, Stanley Freese, Windmills and Millwrighting, →ISBN, page 110:

     For cleanliness, experienced millers prefer an 'overdrift' mill (as, indeed windmills should be, for lightness and efficiency of driving gears), because underdrift gearing becomes very dirty and clogged with a compound of meal dust and grease, besides being generally inaccessible for repairs and adjustments.

Verb

overdrift (third-person singular simple present overdrifts, present participle overdrifting, simple past and past participle overdrifted)

1. To drift on top of.
   • 1877, William Allingham, Songs, Ballads, and Stories:

     Green be those downs and dells above the sea, Smooth-green for ever, by the plough unhurt, Nor overdrifted by their neighbouring sands, Where first I saw you ;

   • 2003, Acta Universitatis Carolinae: Geographica - Volume 35, page 249:

     Overdrifting of snow forms huge drifts or overdrifts, the shearing of which usually starts an avalanche.

   • 2015, Frederick Grice, Gillian Clarke, War's Nomads:

     It seemed as if the sand had not had time to overdrift the detritus of one campaign before a new deposit of ruin had been left behind.

2. To drift too far.
   • 1954, Instruments and Control Systems - Volume 27, page 1465:

     Accordingly, there is the tendency of the power stroke to overdrift the cessation of the travel signal.

Noun

overdrift (countable and uncountable, plural overdrifts)

1. An act of overdrifting.
   • 1873, United States. Army. Corps of Engineers, Report of the Chief of Engineers, page 1032:

     Four horses with a drag accomplished in one day the moving of 75 feet of this extreme in-shore end of the stone-work, and its distribution in the place mentioned proving sufficient to raise the low place to a height to insure the stoppage of any further sand overdrift for the present.

   • 1950, United States. Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, Entomological Technique - Issues 271-314, page 6:

     These values are based on the premise that 25 percent of the insecticide deposits in the first swath. Application to successive swaths results in overdrift, which increases the deposit by 10 to 20 percent in each swath.

   • 1954, Instruments and Control Systems - Volume 27, page 1466:

     For accurate stopping, the drive must incorporate means for minimizing inertia overdrift.

2. Material that has drifted over something.
   • 1896, Julia Boynton Green, “At Redlands”, in The Land of Sunshine, volumes 5-6, page 195:

     Soul of mine Drink in their matchless aspect as they lift Their circling range, obscured by overdrift Of cloud, or stand out sharply, line on line Of august shapes, upon whose foreheads shine The dawn's bright earnest and the late last Gift Of day, the brief empurpled gleams that shift Through netted vapors at the sun's decline.

   • 2003, Acta Universitatis Carolinae: Geographica - Volume 35, page 249:

     Overdrifting of snow forms huge drifts or overdrifts, the shearing of which usually starts an avalanche.

See also

• underdrift