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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
driftwood
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But here you are, turned up like a piece of driftwood.
▪ Frustrated designers constructed elaborate beach retreats with driftwood, bamboo poles, and Laura Ashley sheets.
▪ He saw the horseshoe cove, dammed off from the sea by driftwood and ice.
▪ I poked at its decomposing body with a long driftwood stick, working to turn it over.
▪ It is here that the road pulls you back to the pounding sea and a shoreline littered with huge driftwood logs.
▪ Mr. Novak placed them in a 35 gallon tank containing three large Echinodorus Sword plants and a great deal of driftwood.
▪ She adds to the fire with driftwood.
▪ The floodwater, carrying branches and driftwood, was over the roadway on the curved iron bridge.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Driftwood

Driftwood \Drift"wood`\, n.

  1. Wood drifted or floated by water.

  2. Fig.: Whatever is drifting or floating as on water.

    The current of humanity, with its heavy proportion of very useless driftwood. -- New Your Times.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
driftwood

1630s, from drift (v.) + wood (n.).

Wiktionary
driftwood

n. 1 Floating piece of wood that drifts with the current 2 Such a piece of wood that has been cast ashore

WordNet
driftwood

n. wood that is floating or that has been washed ashore

Gazetteer
Driftwood, PA -- U.S. borough in Pennsylvania
Population (2000): 103
Housing Units (2000): 88
Land area (2000): 1.791692 sq. miles (4.640462 sq. km)
Water area (2000): 0.092487 sq. miles (0.239539 sq. km)
Total area (2000): 1.884179 sq. miles (4.880001 sq. km)
FIPS code: 19976
Located within: Pennsylvania (PA), FIPS 42
Location: 41.338836 N, 78.135535 W
ZIP Codes (1990): 15832
Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
Headwords:
Driftwood, PA
Driftwood
Wikipedia
Driftwood

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Driftwood is wood that has been washed onto a shore or beach of a sea, lake, or river by the action of winds, tides or waves. It is a form of marine debris or tidewrack.

In some waterfront areas, driftwood is a major nuisance. However, the driftwood provides shelter and food for birds, fish and other aquatic species as it floats in the ocean. Gribbles, shipworms and bacteria decompose the wood and gradually turn it into nutrients that are reintroduced to the food web. Sometimes, the partially decomposed wood washes ashore, where it also shelters birds, plants, and other species. Driftwood can become the foundation for sand dunes.

Most driftwood is the remains of trees, in whole or part, that have been washed into the ocean, due to flooding, high winds, or other natural occurrences, or as the result of logging. There is also a subset of driftwood known as drift lumber. Drift lumber includes the remains of man-made wooden objects, such as, buildings and their contents washed into the sea during storms, wooden objects discarded into the water from shore, dropped dunnage or lost cargo from ships ( jetsam), and the remains of shipwrecked wooden ships and boats ( flotsam). Erosion and wave action may make it difficult or impossible to determine the origin of a particular piece of driftwood.

Driftwood can be used as part of decorative furniture or other art forms, and is a popular element in the scenery of fish tanks.

Driftwood (Travis song)

"Driftwood" is the second single taken from Indie band Travis' second studio album, The Man Who. It became their biggest hit single up to that point, peaking at #13 on the UK Singles Chart.

Driftwood (disambiguation)

Driftwood is wood that has been deposited on land by the action of waves.

Driftwood may also refer to:

Driftwood (2006 film)

Driftwood is a 2006 horror film that was shown at the Screamfest LA International Horror Film Festival on October 20, 2006. The film was released on DVD on November 13, 2007. Driftwood was directed by Tim Sullivan and starring Raviv Ullman and Diamond Dallas Page.

Driftwood (horse)

Driftwood (1932–1960) was originally known as Speedy while he was a rodeo horse. Driftwood was known for siring rodeo and ranch horses.

Driftwood (1947 film)

Driftwood is a 1947 drama film directed by Allan Dwan and starring Natalie Wood as a little orphan girl who adopts a collie. The movie also stars Ruth Warrick, Walter Brennan, Dean Jagger and Charlotte Greenwood.

Driftwood (band)

Driftwood is an Americana/Folk-Rock band from Binghamton, NY that was formed in 2005. The group consists of Dan Forsyth (guitar, vocals), Joe Kollar (banjo, guitar, percussion), Claire Byrne (violin, vocals), and Joey Arcuri (upright bass, vocals). Their music has been described variously as "fusing traditional Americana and with contemporary influences and timeless subject matter".

Driftwood (novel)

Driftwood is a novel written by Elizabeth Dutton. The plot centers on Clem Jasper, who goes on a California road trip after her father dies. Driftwood was published in November 2014.

Driftwood (The Moody Blues song)

"Driftwood" is a 1978 single by the English progressive rock band The Moody Blues. It was the second single released from the album Octave, after " Steppin' in a Slide Zone". Written by Justin Hayward, "Driftwood" is a slow love ballad, in a similar manner to " Nights in White Satin" and " Never Comes the Day."

"Driftwood" was also the final single to feature keyboardist Mike Pinder, who left the band shortly before the completion of Octave for personal reasons. He would later be replaced by former Yes keyboardist Patrick Moraz.

Shortly after release, a promotional video was recorded for "Driftwood." The video features Patrick Moraz on the keyboards, although Mike Pinder is playing the keyboards in the actual recording. The song also includes an alto saxophone which is played by session musician R.A. Martin, although Ray Thomas is depicted playing the alto saxophone in the video.

Driftwood (album)

Driftwood is the sixth studio album by Eddi Reader released in the UK on 8 October 2001.

Driftwood is also the name of the recording studios, owned by Roy Dodds, where the tracks were all recorded during the same sessions for the previous album Simple Soul.

The album has a somewhat unique status as being almost an album of outtakes although critics and fans regarded it as a bona fide and worthy follow-up album in its own right.

The album was released independently by Reader herself and initially sold at the Simple Soul autumn 2001 tour dates. It can now be purchased via Eddi's official website.

A couple of the tracks are available on other albums as different versions. "Curragh of Kildare" would later resurface as "The winter it is past" on the Sings the Songs of Robert Burns album whilst "Old Soul" was a reworking of "I felt a soul move through me" from Simple Soul.

"Wasting time" is a Ron Sexsmith song from his self-titled 1995 album. Sexsmith had previously written "On a Whim" specifically for Reader which appeared on her 1998 album "Angels and Electricity".

"Good girl" was written for and used in the BBC drama "Real Women".

Usage examples of "driftwood".

Just as Kelsey, briskly interviewing Chia on the circumstances of her life, had devised the cover for her impending absence: ten days in the San Juans with Hester Chen, whose well-heeled luddite mother so thoroughly feared electromagnetic radiation that she lived phoneless, in a sod-roofed castle of driftwood, no electricity allowed whatever.

Among the human driftwood gathered here there was one old man who had been a cobbler, working at his trade as long as he had strength to do so.

With methodical care, Inyanga gathered driftwood and spread it in the sun to dry.

I spat on the kerb, knowing he was right, that there really i took them down to the Embankment where the old river ran pure silver under the uncloaked moon, its waters free of human detritus, driftwood and loose craft the only blight.

Trees do not flourish in the land of Imnak and their needs for wood must largely be satisfied by occasional finds at the shore, driftwood, from hundreds of pasangs south, dragged from the chilled water.

Heaped like driftwood by the rising water, bobbing and rolling on the edges, the putrefying flesh seethed with black-shelled, ten-legged crabs.

The seaside house is decorated with telco decals, chunks of driftwood, and the basic bric-a-brac of a hippie crash-pad.

Found in the Nevada mountains, the bristlecone pine is a stunted specimen looking more like a piece of standing driftwood than a living organism, but it can live five thousand years!

The trader track would fade before long, he recalled, the dyke on his right dwindling, the road itself becoming a sandy swath humped with ant nests, bone-white driftwood and yellow knots of grass, with floods wiping the ruts away every spring.

Charlie more of a satiny branch of driftwood wrapped in microlights than a traditional conifer.

As the day waned, the islanders gathered great piles of driftwood and lit fires along the shoreside, then played their pipes and sang their songs.

But what tiny supplies of driftwood they combed from the beaches had to be saved for the cooking fires, silphium and meat.

North of that line the sharpness of the parting wall becomes less distinct, the stream spreads out broadly over the surface of the Atlantic, yet its thermometric effects are distinctly traceable to Iceland and Nova Zembla, and the tropical driftwood which it carries affords the principal timber supply of the inhabitants of the first-named isle.

Its electric i took them down to the Embankment where the old river ran pure silver under the uncloaked moon, its waters free of human detritus, driftwood and loose craft the only blight.

Using a piece of driftwood, Andas cleared off the ugly scum along the edge, and then they laid Elys in the turgid water, Andas kneeling in the stinking liquid to support her.