WANDERING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does wandering mean? 

• WANDERING (noun)
  The noun WANDERING has 1 sense:

1. travelling about without any clear destination

  Familiarity information: WANDERING used as a noun is very rare.

• WANDERING (adjective)
  The adjective WANDERING has 3 senses:

1. migratory

2. of a path e.g.

3. having no fixed course

  Familiarity information: WANDERING used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WANDERING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Travelling about without any clear destination

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

roving; vagabondage; wandering

Context example:

she followed him in his wanderings and looked after him

Hypernyms ("wandering" is a kind of...):

travel; traveling; travelling (the act of going from one place to another)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wandering"):

drifting (aimless wandering from place to place)

Derivation:

wander (move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment)

• WANDERING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Migratory

Synonyms:

mobile; nomadic; peregrine; roving; wandering

Context example:

wandering tribes

Similar:

unsettled (not settled or established)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Of a path e.g.

Synonyms:

meandering; rambling; wandering; winding

Context example:

a winding country road

Similar:

indirect (not direct in spatial dimension; not leading by a straight line or course to a destination)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Having no fixed course

Synonyms:

erratic; planetary; wandering

Context example:

a planetary vagabond

Similar:

unsettled (not settled or established)

 Context examples 

So he went away to try and find the castle of his friends; and after wandering about a few days he luckily found it.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But really I think that we are wandering rather far from the point.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But with all that, he minded people less and seemed shut up in his own thoughts and rather wandering.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

"People tend to think of mind wandering as something that is bad. You try to pay attention and you can't," said Schumacher.

(Daydreaming Is Good: It Means You're Smart, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Beneath sat Du Guesclin and Sir Nigel, with Sir Amory Monticourt, of the order of the Hospitallers, and Sir Otto Harnit, a wandering knight from the kingdom of Bohemia.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And now it is, that I begin to see her solitary brother passing through the dark streets at night, and looking, as he goes, among the wandering faces.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

One morning, about a week after his leaving the country, Marianne was prevailed on to join her sisters in their usual walk, instead of wandering away by herself.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

But he was now learning from Spencer that he never had known, and that he never could have known had he continued his sailing and wandering forever.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He was tired of wandering about alone, and Amy's familiar presence seemed to give a homelike charm to the foreign scenes in which she bore a part.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)