Word: drive Part of Speech: verb Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰreybʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *drībaną Proto-West Germanic *drīban Old English drīfan Middle English driven English drive From Middle English driven, from Old English drīfan (“to drive, force, move”), from Proto-West Germanic *drīban, from Proto-Germanic *drībaną (“to drive”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreybʰ- (“to drive, push”). Cognates Cognate with Scots drive (“to drive”), Yola dhreeve, dhrive, dreeve, drieve, drive (“to drive”), North Frisian driiv, driiw, driwe (“to drive”), West Frisian driuwe (“to drive; to float”), Alemannic German triibe (“to drive”), Dutch drijven (“to drive, push”), German treiben (“to drive, push, propel”), Low German drieven (“to drive, drift, push”), Luxembourgish dreiwen (“to drive, propel”), Yiddish טרײַבן (traybn, “to drive”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål drive (“to drive, propel”), Icelandic drífa (“to drive”), Norwegian Nynorsk driva, drive (“to drive, move; to propel; to run”), Swedish driva (“to drive, compel; to drift; to run”), Gothic 𐌳𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌱𐌰𐌽 (dreiban, “to drive”). Pronunciation: /dɹaɪv/, [d̠ɹ̠ ̝(ʷ)aɪv], [d͡ʒɹaɪv], /dɹɑev/, [dɹɑe̯v] 1. To operate a vehicle: Labels: ergative, transitive Example: The bridges weren't strong enough to drive (campers) over. Example: This SUV drives insanely smoothly—it's like it knows what I want before I do. 2. To operate a vehicle: Labels: intransitive Example: I drive to work every day. 3. To operate a vehicle: Labels: transitive Example: My cousin drove me to the airport. 4. To operate a vehicle: Labels: slang, transitive Example: drive a 737 5. To operate a vehicle: Labels: intransitive, transitive Example: There is a litter ready; lay him in’t And drive towards Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet Both welcome and protection. Example: We drove back to the office with some concern on my part at the prospect of so large a case. Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines. 6. To compel to move: Labels: transitive Example: to drive twenty thousand head of cattle from Texas to the Kansas railheads; to drive sheep out of a field 7. To compel to move: Labels: transitive Example: The hunting dog drove the birds out of the tall grass. Example: We'll drive the enemy from these lands once and for all. 8. To cause to move by the application of physical force: Labels: transitive Example: You drive nails into wood with any hammer; it's not as strenuous as driving a tunnel through the rock. Example: Moving very quietly, I crept up the stairs, and at the top drove one drawing-pin into the lintel about a foot up, another at the same height into the baluster opposite […] 9. To cause to move by the application of physical force: Labels: transitive Example: The pistons drive the crankshaft. 10. To cause to move by the application of physical force: Labels: intransitive 11. To cause to move by the application of physical force: Labels: transitive 12. To displace either physically or non-physically, through the application of force. Labels: transitive Example: One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail. 13. To compel to undergo a non-physical change: Labels: transitive Example: My husband's constant harping about the condition of the house threatens to drive me to distraction. 14. To compel to undergo a non-physical change: Labels: transitive Example: What drives a person to run a marathon? 15. To compel to undergo a non-physical change: Labels: transitive Example: Their debts finally drove them to sell the business. Example: He driuen to dismount, threatned, if I did not the like, to doo as much for my horse, as Fortune had done for his. 16. To compel to undergo a non-physical change: Labels: transitive Example: This constant complaining is going to drive me insane. Example: You are driving me crazy! 17. To compel to undergo a non-physical change: Labels: transitive Example: Frothing at the mouth and threatening expulsion, Coach relentlessly drove the team to more laps of the pitch. Example: […] Demosthenes desired them first to put in at Pylos and not to proceed on their voyage until they had done what he wanted. They objected, but it so happened that a storm came on and drove them into Pylos. 18. To compel to undergo a non-physical change: Labels: transitive Example: The negotiations were driven to completion minutes before the final deadline. Example: If you drive yourself so much, you'll end up having a breakdown. 19. To move forcefully. Labels: intransitive Example: […] Unequal match’d, Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide; Example: Thus while the Pious Prince his Fate bewails, Fierce Boreas drove against his flying Sails. And rent the Sheets […] 20. To be moved or propelled forcefully (especially of a ship). Labels: intransitive Example: […] as a duck for life that dives, So up and down the poor ship drives: Example: […] the Captain […] order’d the Cable to be cut, and let the Ship drive nearer the Land, where she soon beat to pieces: 21. To carry or to keep in motion; to conduct; to prosecute. Labels: transitive Example: You know the Trade of Life can’t be driven without Partners; there is a reciprocal Dependance between the Greatest and the Least. 22. To clear, by forcing away what is contained. Labels: transitive Example: We come not with design of wastful Prey, To drive the Country, force the Swains away: 23. To dig horizontally; to cut a horizontal gallery or tunnel. Example: 1852-1866, Charles Tomlinson, Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts and Manufactures If the miners find no ore, they drive or cut a gallery from the pit a short distance at right angles to the direction of the lodes found 24. To put together a drive (n.): to string together offensive plays and advance the ball down the field. 25. To distrain for rent. Labels: obsolete 26. To be the dominant party in a sex act.