drive at

British

verb

informal (intr, preposition) to intend or mean

what are you driving at?

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

drive at Idioms

Mean to do or say, as in I don't understand what he's driving at. Today this idiom, first recorded in 1579, is used mainly with the participle driving.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

drive at

"Blindkilde Brown has had a very good season. She's a player who likes to get on the ball, and in pockets of space to drive at players," said Johnson.

From BBC ● Jun. 9, 2026

Latham's rash drive at Atkinson to the third ball of the innings was an awful stroke.

From BBC ● Jun. 5, 2026

Michael Whitaker used to drive at an average of 65 miles an hour to 68 mph, hauling heavy equipment between Iowa, Maryland, Georgia and the Carolinas.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026

“But we are aiming for that level four autonomy, where you don’t have to drive at all.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 13, 2026

Immediately Ben began to whimper again, and for a while all of them looked up the drive at the square, paintless house with its rotting portico.

From "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023