Definition
DRIFT carries two distinct legal meanings, one rooted in medieval English land and cattle law, the other in the technical vocabulary of mining law.
1. Old English Law — Cattle Driving. A drift was the act of driving cattle, particularly the formal or official driving of stray or impounded animals. The term appears in the compound forms DRIFTLAND (also DROFLAND or DRYFLAND), which denoted a tribute paid by certain tenants to the king or their landlord in exchange for the privilege of driving cattle through a manor to fairs or markets.
2. Mining Law. An underground passage driven horizontally along the course of a mineralized vein, or approximately so. A drift is distinguished from a shaft, which is sunk vertically from the surface downward to reach a vein, and from a tunnel, which is a lateral or horizontal passage driven from outside the earth to reach a vein or mineral deposit. A drift, by contrast, is contained entirely underground and follows the mineral bearing formation.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To move slowly, especially pushed by currents of water or air; to move haphazardly without any destination; to deviate gently from an intended course; also, in a specialized sense, to examine a vein or ledge in mining.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A driving; a violent movement; an overpowering influence or impulse; the course or direction along which anything is driven.
The ordinary English sense of drift — passive, unguided movement carried by external forces — captures almost the opposite of the old legal meaning, which was deliberate, purposeful driving of cattle under recognized legal right. In mining law, the term reconnects with the Wiktionary specialized sense of examining a vein, but has a precise technical meaning that the common definition does not convey. Researchers should not import the passive or accidental connotation of the common word into legal contexts.
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Common Confusion
Drift is sometimes conflated with tunnel and shaft in mining disputes and older deed descriptions. The technical distinction matters for mineral rights, easements, and lease interpretation: a drift follows the vein horizontally underground; a shaft descends vertically from the surface; a tunnel penetrates horizontally from outside to reach a vein. Older deeds and mining grants may use these terms loosely or interchangeably. The same caution applies to the cattle-driving context, where drift may be confused with pound (impoundment) or with the right of common of pasture, though they are legally distinct concepts.
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Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
DRIFTLAND (also DROFLAND, DRYFLAND): A Saxon-derived term for the annual tribute paid by tenants for the right to drive cattle through a manor. Distinct from the act of drift itself, driftland refers to the compensatory obligation accompanying the privilege.
DRIFT OF THE FOREST: A formal driving of animals within a forest for the purpose of examining them, determining ownership, and removing those with no right to be there. This was an administrative proceeding under forest law, conducted at fixed times under royal authority.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering drift in historical English sources must first determine the context: land tenure and manorial records, forest law proceedings, or mining documents. The word appears across all three without disambiguation, and the legal consequences in each context are entirely different.
In manorial and land records, drift implicates grazing rights, toll obligations, and the legal relationship between lord and tenant over cattle movement. The tribute structure underlying driftland is relevant to any research into customary tenures, manorial services, or the abolition of feudal incidents.
In forest law records, drift of the forest was a formal administrative act with its own procedural requirements. Sources treating forest law — and the Law Mind corpus contains substantial historical material on the subject — will use drift in this specific official sense.
In mining law, drift becomes highly relevant in the American context, particularly in cases involving hardrock mining in the western United States. Mine leases, patents under the General Mining Law, and underground trespass disputes frequently turn on whether a passage constitutes a drift, tunnel, or shaft, because the legal rights and obligations attached to each differ. Older mining decisions may not define the term explicitly, assuming technical knowledge that modern readers lack.
The crop dusting and pesticide drift context — the accidental movement of agricultural chemicals by wind onto neighboring land — is an entirely separate use of the word that carries no historical legal freight from either the cattle-driving or mining meanings. It invokes the common English sense of passive movement by external forces and is analyzed under tort and strict liability principles rather than property or mining law.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries agree on the core cattle-driving meaning. Rapalje & Lawrence provides the most detail, connecting drift to driftland and citing Cowell for the tribute obligation — a useful pointer to Cowell's Interpreter for researchers who need period-accurate elaboration. Burrill associates drift with the Latin agitatio (a driving or setting in motion), which usefully confirms that the concept is purposeful movement, not passive displacement.
Black's 1st edition limits itself to the cattle-driving definition, while Black's 2nd edition adds the mining law definition — a meaningful expansion reflecting the growth of American mining jurisprudence between editions. Researchers relying on the 1st edition alone will miss the mining sense entirely, which is a notable gap given how frequently mining disputes arose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
None of the historical dictionaries address pesticide or chemical drift, which is an entirely modern development in tort law.
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Jurisdictional Note
The cattle-driving and forest-law meanings of drift are effectively confined to English legal history and have no operative significance in modern American law. The mining law definition retains practical relevance in states with active hardrock mining — particularly in the western United States — where older grants, patents, and lease descriptions using the term may still be litigated. Courts in those jurisdictions have generally adopted the technical mining industry definition aligned with Black's 2nd edition.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Strict Liability and Abnormally Dangerous Activities — Crop Dusting and Pesticide Drift (Law Mind Torts & Personal Injury Encyclopedia, torts_141). Relevant for the modern tort context of chemical or pesticide drift, which proceeds under strict liability and nuisance principles rather than the historical property law uses of the term.
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