- drive (v.)
- O.E. drifan (class I strong verb; past tense draf, pp. drifen), from P.Gmc. *dribanan (cf. O.N. drifa, Goth. dreiban), not found outside Gmc. Original sense of "pushing from behind," altered in Mod.Eng. by application to automobiles. Golfing sense of "forcible blow" is from 1836. Meaning "organized effort to raise money" is 1889, Amer.Eng. The noun, in the computing sense, first attested 1963. Drive-in (adj.) first recorded 1930, of restaurants, banks, movies, etc. Drive-through first attested 1949, in an advertisement for the Beer Vault Drive-Thru in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Driveway is from 1875.
"The more you drive, the less intelligent you are." ["Repo Man"]