meander
/mɪˈandə
/verb [no object, with adverbial of direction]
1(Of a river or road) follow a winding course: a river that meandered gently through a meadow...
- Ali led the way to a place where the river meandered away from the road, looping around a tall stand of deciduous forest that stood alone like an island.
- The Tungabhadra river meanders gently through, and at night the boulder-strewn landscape has an almost magical quality.
- The area grew and prospered during the Industrial Revolution, but it's now an oasis of green calm, where canals and rivers meander through hills dotted with sheep and dry-stone walls.
Synonyms
zigzag, wind, twist, turn, curve, curl, bend, snake
1.1Wander at random: kids meandered in and out...
- Everyone was wandering around town, meandering.
- Patricia Schultz has suffered from wanderlust ever since she meandered away from the family beach blanket at age 4.
- Omid took some time to meander and wander through the Game Developer Conference in San Jose last week.
Synonyms
stroll, saunter, amble, wander, roam, ramble, rove, drift, maunder, stray, straggle;
Scottish & Irish stravaig;
Irish streel
informal mosey, tootle
British informal bimble
rare vagabond
1.2 [no object] (Of language, thought, etc.) proceed aimlessly or with little purpose: a stylish offbeat thriller which occasionally meanders...
- I had just taken Claire home at around 11:00 a.m and was once again cruising around in my car, thoughts meandering around my head.
- My thoughts meandered and moseyed as my eyelids grew heavy.
- Thoughts meandered through her brain, and they were quite unorganized.
Synonyms
ramble, prattle, maunder, prate, blather, blether, blither, drivel, chatter, rattle, drift
British informal witter, waffle, rabbit, natter
noun (usually meanders)
1A winding curve or bend of a river or road: the river flows in sweeping meanders...
- Awkwardly sited on the river meander, the bridge has an uncomfortable relationship with the freeway.
- Shreve, in a move of astonishing hubris, decided in 1831 to dredge a five-mile shortcut across a long meander on the Mississippi, saving 18 river-miles.
Synonyms
bend, loop, curve, twist, turn, turning, coil, zigzag, oxbow, convolution
rare anfractuosity, flexuosity
1.1 [in singular] An indirect or aimless journey: a leisurely meander round the twisting coastline road...
- Quite apart form this, a slow meander down the Siq establishes the mystery of this ‘lost’ city and builds up a sense of anticipation around every corner.
- Another meander takes us into the house of a female healer.
- I will be writing about costs of living, food and booze on a slow meander in the sun.
Synonyms
wander, ramble, stroll, saunter, amble
informal mosey, tootle
British informal bimble
1.2An ornamental pattern of winding or interlocking lines.Subsidiary zones are filled by key meanders among other rectilinear motifs; there may also be friezes of goats and deer, derived from Levantine sources....
- Works called ‘folded loops’ resemble meanders or mazes, with every line bending back on itself.
- Contributing to this impression was not only the shape-on-top-of-shape appearance but that work's random meander.
Origin
Late 16th century (as a noun): from Latin maeander, from Greek Maiandros, the name of a river (see Menderes).
The River Menderes in southwest Turkey rises in the Anatolian plateau and winds some 384 km (240 miles) to the Aegean Sea. It features in Homer's Iliad and was known in ancient times as the Maeander, and its winding course gave its name to meander.