drive

verb

1. (ergative, transitive)To operate a vehicle:

   “The bridges weren't strong enough to drive (campers) over.”

   “This SUV drives insanely smoothly—it's like it knows what I want before I do.”

2. (intransitive)To operate a vehicle:

   “I drive to work every day.”

3. (transitive)To operate a vehicle:

   “My cousin drove me to the airport.”

4. (slang, transitive)To operate a vehicle:

   “drive a 737”

5. (intransitive, transitive)To operate a vehicle:

   “There is a litter ready; lay him in’t And drive towards Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet Both welcome and protection.”

   “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. (transitive)To compel to move:

   “to drive twenty thousand head of cattle from Texas to the Kansas railheads; to drive sheep out of a field”

7. (transitive)To compel to move:

   “The hunting dog drove the birds out of the tall grass.”

   “We'll drive the enemy from these lands once and for all.”

8. (transitive)To cause to move by the application of physical force:

   “You drive nails into wood with any hammer; it's not as strenuous as driving a tunnel through the rock.”

   “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. (transitive)To cause to move by the application of physical force:

   “The pistons drive the crankshaft.”

10. (intransitive)To cause to move by the application of physical force:
11. (transitive)To cause to move by the application of physical force:
12. (transitive)To displace either physically or non-physically, through the application of force.

    “One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.”

13. (transitive)To compel to undergo a non-physical change:

    “My husband's constant harping about the condition of the house threatens to drive me to distraction.”

14. (transitive)To compel to undergo a non-physical change:

    “What drives a person to run a marathon?”

15. (transitive)To compel to undergo a non-physical change:

    “Their debts finally drove them to sell the business.”

    “He driuen to dismount, threatned, if I did not the like, to doo as much for my horse, as Fortune had done for his.”

    “But darkness and the gloomy shade of death Environ you, till mischief and despair Drive you to break your necks or hang yourselves!”

16. (transitive)To compel to undergo a non-physical change:

    “This constant complaining is going to drive me insane.”

    “You are driving me crazy!”

    “1855, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Maud, XXV, 1. in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, p. 90, And then to hear a dead man chatter Is enough to drive one mad.”

    “One morning I had been driven to the precarious refuge afforded by the steps of the inn, after rejecting offers from the Celebrity to join him in a variety of amusements. But even here I was not free from interruption, for he was seated on a horse-block below me, playing with a fox terrier.”

17. (transitive)To compel to undergo a non-physical change:

    “Frothing at the mouth and threatening expulsion, Coach relentlessly drove the team to more laps of the pitch.”

    “[…] 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. (transitive)To compel to undergo a non-physical change:

    “The negotiations were driven to completion minutes before the final deadline.”

    “If you drive yourself so much, you'll end up having a breakdown.”

    “And now we're waiting for the very same people to establish GBR, drive through urgently needed fares reform, and come up with imaginative and effective train operating contracts...”

19. (intransitive)To move forcefully.

    “[…] Unequal match’d, Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;”

    “Thus while the Pious Prince his Fate bewails, Fierce Boreas drove against his flying Sails. And rent the Sheets […]”

    “Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb.”

    “Charles, ill in body and mind, and glad to escape from his enemies under cover of the night and a driving tempest, was at length compelled to sign the treaty of Passau […]”

    “It would seem they were regarding this new antagonist with astonishment. To their intelligence, it may be, the giant was even such another as themselves. The Thunder Child fired no gun, but simply drove full speed towards them. It was probably her not firing that enabled her to get so near the enemy as she did. They did not know what to make of her. One shell, and they would have sent her to the bottom forthwith with the Heat-Ray.”

20. (intransitive)To be moved or propelled forcefully (especially of a ship).

    “[…] as a duck for life that dives, So up and down the poor ship drives:”

    “[…] the Captain […] order’d the Cable to be cut, and let the Ship drive nearer the Land, where she soon beat to pieces:”

21. (transitive)To carry or to keep in motion; to conduct; to prosecute.

    “You know the Trade of Life can’t be driven without Partners; there is a reciprocal Dependance between the Greatest and the Least.”

22. (transitive)To clear, by forcing away what is contained.

    “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.

    “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. (obsolete)To distrain for rent.
26. To be the dominant party in a sex act.

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Planned, usually long-lasting, effort to achieve something; ability coupled with ambition, determination, and motivation.

   “Crassus had wealth and wit, but Pompey had drive and Caesar as much again.”

   “As we contemplate the half-finished arterial roads and electrification plans of our own age, and the town-planning schemes that gather dust in the public libraries, we can admire the drive and action of the railway pioneers.”

   “I confess that the sight of my minute man ahead, getting closer and closer, gives me a little more drive even when I think I am going as fast as I can.”

   “I can make money from the comfort of my sofa / So much drive, now I gotta get a chauffeur”

2. (countable, uncountable)Violent or rapid motion; a rushing onward or away; (especially) a forced or hurried dispatch of business.

   “The Murdstonian drive in business.”

3. (countable, uncountable)An act of driving (prompting) animals forward.

   “Are you all ready?’ he cried, and set off towards the dead ash where the drive would begin.”

4. (countable, uncountable)An act of driving (prompting) animals forward.
5. (countable, uncountable)A sustained advance in the face of the enemy to take an objective.

   “Napoleon's drive on Moscow was as determined as it was disastrous.”

   “On the other hand, in Eritrea (once our Forces had recaptured Kassala on January 19) the drive was generally eastward towards the capital, Asmara, and the Red Sea port of Massaua.”

6. (countable, uncountable)A mechanism used to power or give motion to a vehicle or other machine or machine part.

   “a typical steam drive”

   “a nuclear drive”

   “chain drive”

   “front-wheel drive”

   “Some old model trains have clockwork drives.”

7. (countable, uncountable)A trip made in a vehicle (now generally in a motor vehicle).

   “It was a long drive.”

   “We merely waited to rouse good Mrs. Vesey from the place which she still occupied at the deserted luncheon-table, before we entered the open carriage for our promised drive.”

8. (countable, uncountable)A driveway.

   “The mansion had a long, tree-lined drive.”

   “We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine. We passed on the way the van of the guests from Asquith.”

   “Halfway from Hellingly Station, the railway enters the well-kept hospital grounds, and runs parallel with a tree-lined drive about half a mile long.”

   “I listen for your footsteps coming up the drive / Listen for your footsteps, but they don't arrive”

9. (countable, uncountable)A type of public roadway.

   “Beverly Hills’ most famous street is Rodeo Drive.”

10. (countable, uncountable)The gear into which one usually shifts an automatic transmission when one is driving a car or truck. (Denoted with symbol D on a shifter's labeling.)

    “Normally you should be in drive, although you can select a lower gear such as 2 or 1 for certain conditions, such as prolonged downhill stretches.”

11. (countable, dated, uncountable)A place suitable or agreeable for driving; a road prepared for driving.
12. (countable, uncountable)Desire or interest.

    “1995 March 2, John Carman, "Believe It, You Saw It in Sweeps", SFGate http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Believe-It-You-Saw-It-In-Sweeps-3043091.php On the latter show, former Playboy Playmate Carrie Westcott said she'd never met a man who could match her sexual drive.”

13. (countable, uncountable)An apparatus for reading and writing data to or from a mass storage device such as a disk.
14. (countable, uncountable)A mass storage device in which the mechanism for reading and writing data is integrated with the mechanism for storing data.
15. (countable, uncountable)A stroke made with a driver.
16. (countable, uncountable)A ball struck in a flat trajectory.
17. (countable, uncountable)A type of shot played by swinging the bat in a vertical arc, through the line of the ball, and hitting it along the ground, normally between cover and midwicket.
18. (countable, uncountable)A straight level shot or pass.

    “And after Rodallega missed two early opportunities, the first a header, the second a low drive easily held by Lukasz Fabianski, it was N'Zogbia who created the opening goal.”

19. (countable, uncountable)An offensive possession, generally one consisting of several plays and/ or first downs, often leading to a scoring opportunity.
20. (countable, uncountable)A charity event such as a fundraiser, bake sale, or toy drive.

    “a whist drive”

    “a beetle drive”

21. (countable, uncountable)A campaign aimed at selling more of a certain product or promoting a public service.

    “vaccination drive”

22. (countable, uncountable)An impression or matrix formed by a punch drift.
23. (countable, uncountable)A collection of objects that are driven; a mass of logs to be floated down a river.
24. (UK, countable, slang, uncountable)Friendly term of address for a bus driver.

    “Yeah, thanks, drive! You boyz all goin' shoppin'? We are, drive, says Chip.”

    “The coaches dropped us where we had begun, outside the chapel; each child in turn piping up, 'Thank you, drive!' as we disembarked.”

    “Soon every stop on every route was once again punctuated by rounds of 'Cheers drive! Cheers drive! Cheers drive!' And with this little nicety reinstated, all was relatively well in Bristol town.”

    “'Cheers, Drive!' said Dylan as they climbed off the bus.”