continental drift

noun

: a slow movement of the continents on a deep-seated viscous zone within the earth compare plate tectonics

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

In highly simplified terms, continental drift occurs because only a relatively small proportion of the Earth’s substance is solid matter. —Jack Feerick, Discover Magazine, 25 Oct. 2020

As late as 1958, a book rejecting continental drift included a foreword by Albert Einstein. —Cody Cottier, Discover Magazine, 18 Feb. 2021

Wegener was the meteorologist who proposed the idea of continental drift, an idea resoundingly rejected at the time by geologists. —Jeffrey Wilkerson, Discover Magazine, 22 Jan. 2016

States will continue to shift their political allegiance at roughly the pace of continental drift. —Walter Shapiro, The New Republic, 28 Nov. 2022

Didn’t have much to do, what with his offense moving like continental drift. —Nick Canepacolumnist, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 Oct. 2022

Eons in advance, then, cartographers and earth scientists are clocking continental drift and fantasizing about new worlds. —Virginia Heffernan, Wired, 26 Oct. 2021

The revolutionary theory of continental drift advanced by Alfred Wegener in 1912, was rejected by mainstream geologists for four decades and only became popular after the mechanism of plate tectonics was recognized. —Avi Loeb, Scientific American, 3 June 2021

The heat is from Earth’s molten interior, which causes continental drift. —Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 15 Mar. 2021

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Word History

First Known Use

1926, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

continental drift

noun

: the slow movement of the continents on a fluid layer that extends to deep within the earth