Drive, in all its senses, implies forcible or violent action. It is the reverse of to lead. To drive a body is to move it by applying a force behind; to lead is to cause to move by applying the force before, or in front. It takes a variety of meanings, according to the objects by which it is followed; as, to drive an engine, to direct and regulate its motions; to drive logs, to keep them in the current of a river and direct them in their course; to drive feathers or down, to place them in a machine, which, by a current of air, drives off the lightest to one end, and collects them by themselves. "My thrice-driven bed of down." Shak.
Drive, v. i. 1. To rush and press with violence; to move furiously.
Fierce Boreas drove against his flying sails.
Dryden.
Under cover of the night and a driving tempest.
Prescott.
Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Tennyson.
2. To be forced along; to be impelled; to be moved by any physical force or agent; to be driven.
The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn.
Byron.
The chaise drives to Mr. Draper's chambers.
Thackeray.
3. To go by carriage; to pass in a carriage; to proceed by directing or urging on a vehicle or the animals that draw it; as, the coachman drove to my door.
4. To press forward; to aim, or tend, to a point; to make an effort; to strive; -- usually with at.
Let them therefore declare what carnal or secular interest he drove at.
South.