wander

wander

See also: Wander

English

Etymology

From Middle English wandren, from Old English wandrian (“to wander, roam, fly around, hover; change; stray, err”), from Proto-West Germanic *wandarōn (“to wander”), from *wandōn (“to turn, change”) +‎ *-rōn (frequentative suffix). Cognate with Scots wander (“to wander”), German wandern (“to wander, roam, hike, migrate”), Dutch wandelen (“to wander, roam, hike, migrate”), Danish vandre (“to wander, roam, hike, migrate”), Swedish vandra (“to wander, hike”).

Pronunciation

Verb

wander (third-person singular simple present wanders, present participle wandering, simple past and past participle wandered)

  1. (intransitive) To move without purpose or specified destination; often in search of livelihood.
    Synonyms: err, roam
    to wander over the fields
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Hebrews 11:37:
      They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins.
    • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
      “A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; […]. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retroussé moustache.
    • 1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC:
      There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy. […] Stewards, carrying cabin trunks, swarm in the corridors. Passengers wander restlessly about or hurry, with futile energy, from place to place.
  2. (intransitive) To stray; stray from one's course; err.
    A writer wanders from his subject.
  3. (intransitive) To commit adultery.
    Synonym: cheat
  4. (intransitive) To go somewhere indirectly or at varying speeds; to move in a curved path.
    Synonym: drift
  5. (intransitive) Of the mind, to lose focus or clarity of argument or attention.
    Synonyms: distract, scatter

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

wander (countable and uncountable, plural wanders)

  1. (countable) An act or instance of wandering.
    to go for a wander in the park
  2. (uncountable, of a value, signal or similar) Deviation from a correct or normal value.
    Hyponym: polar wander
    baseline wander in ECG signals

Translations

Anagrams

German

Pronunciation

Verb

wander

  1. inflection of wandern:
    1. first-person singular present
    2. singular imperative

Middle English

Verb

wander

  1. alternative form of wandren
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