to drive around
65
2.3
- phrasal verb
- /draɪv əˈraʊnd/
:
dar vueltas en coche
- I spent the afternoon just driving around the city without any specific plan.
- drive around aimlessly
- drive around town
- drive around the city
Y'all like he will come into his neighborhood and drive around the circle by me.
- Y'all like he will come into his neighborhood and drive around the circle by me.
- I want to, I, I, I want to do and just drive around with him doing this.
- And they get, he's driving around in Chris's Range Rover.
- And next thing I know, you know, we're driving around and he wants to go.
- And I have the answer is we did drive around for a week.
Examples
-
We were just driving around when we saw you, and then you ran.
Fiction book (1992) -
We've been driving around now for twenty minutes.
-
Right now we are driving around trying to find something to eat.
-
And they still drive around town to save money on gas.
-
And next thing I know, you know, we're driving around and he wants to go.
-
" Maybe we could just drive around for a while," she said.
Fiction book (1992) -
What you gotta do is drive around to the Pie House lot.
-
The town was small, too, so occasionally I saw her driving around, looking for a parking place or something.
Fiction book (1998) -
- Mitch, we need to drive around some more and look for him.
-
How many weekends have we spent driving around looking for exactly that thing?
Synonyms
12
4.1
To drive slowly around an area without a specific destination
3
8.4
To drive a car or other vehicle slowly without a plan
2
7.7
Move around with no set place to go for fun
To travel slowly without a clear plan
How Aimless
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to drive a vehicle without any particular destination' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'drive' (to operate a vehicle) with the locative/area particle 'around' indicating movement within an area. This motion-verb + particle composition is common in English and cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
Drive around comes from the picture of a car moving, where the parts drive and around show the car going around town with no set goal, just moving for fun or to relax. That's why it means 'to drive without any particular destination'.