人：一直在漂的那個人
最直接的一支：把「順著水走」放到一個人的生活上。
noun · B2
Someone who keeps moving from one place or one job to another, without settling anywhere and without a clear plan for their life.
漂泊的人
核心畫面
One way to hold this word: drift + -er, the one that goes with the water. Something loose in a current is carried along and does not steer, and every use of drifter points at that picture — a person with no fixed place, a boat that lets its net ride the tide, a sail for the day the wind has almost stopped, a car sliding sideways instead of the road.
drifter 可以想成「順著走的那一個」：drift（漂）加上 -er（做這件事的人或東西）。畫面就像水面上一樣鬆…更多收起
drifter 可以想成「順著走的那一個」：drift（漂）加上 -er（做這件事的人或東西）。畫面就像水面上一樣鬆開的東西，水往哪裡去，它就往哪裡去，自己不出力轉向。這個字的每一種用法都掛在這張圖上：沒有固定落腳處的人、讓網跟著潮水漂的漁船、風幾乎停了才升起來的輕帆，還有在彎道上鬆開抓地力、橫著滑過去的車。From the word’s history
Wiktionary's tree for this headword gives it as English drift plus the agent ending -er (Old English -ere), so the word is literally 'the one that drifts'.
封包裡的 Wiktionary 字源樹寫著：drifter 來自 drift 加上表示「做這件事的人／東西」的字尾 -er（古英語 -ere）。字面就是「會漂的那一個」，所以後面每一種用法都還看得到這條線。
Wiktionary entry supplied in packet (kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:904891082) — 'From drift (verb) + -er'.
Three branches
海上：讓風和水帶著走的東西
同一張圖，只是主角從人換成船和帆：它們也是順著水流或微風走。
noun · C1
A fishing boat that catches fish with a long net left hanging in the water, so that the net and the boat move together with the current.
流網漁船
車：鬆開抓地力地滑
車子失去抓地力橫著滑，看起來就像在路面上漂；做這件事的人因此也叫 drifter。
noun · C1
A driver who makes a car slide sideways on purpose, letting the back wheels lose their grip while still steering the car through the turn.
甩尾車手