perambulate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
perambulates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
perambulated,
past participle, past
-
perambulating
present participle
-
to walk through, about, or over; travel through; traverse.
-
to traverse in order to examine or inspect.
verb (used without object)
-
perambulates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
perambulated,
past participle, past
-
perambulating
present participle
verb
-
to walk about (a place)
-
(tr) to walk round in order to inspect
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
perambulatesimple
-
perambulatessimple
-
have perambulatedperfect
-
has perambulatedperfect
-
am perambulatingprogressive
-
are perambulatingprogressive
-
is perambulatingprogressive
-
have been perambulatingperfect progressive
-
has been perambulatingperfect progressive
Past
-
perambulatedsimple
-
had perambulatedperfect
-
was perambulatingprogressive
-
were perambulatingprogressive
-
had been perambulatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of perambulate
First recorded in 1560–70; from Latin perambulātus, past participle of perambulāre “to walk through”; see origin at per-, ambulate
Explanation
If you're fond of strolling around your neighborhood with no special destination, you like to perambulate. When you walk for the sake of taking a walk, you perambulate. It's an old-fashioned way to describe taking an after-dinner stroll or a meander through the zoo. The Latin word at the root of perambulate is ambulare, "to walk," and the more common word amble shares this origin. Another related word is perambulator, a mainly British term for a baby carriage or stroller, which is shortened to the more familiar pram.
Vocabulary lists containing perambulate
Walk the Walk: Amb
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"What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" by Frederick Douglass
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"Simon's Saga," Vocabulary from Episode 2
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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:
Dear Jane Austen fans: Run, don’t perambulate, to see “Lovers’ Vows.”
From Washington Post ● Nov. 11, 2019
Cleese’s habitual sardonicism notwithstanding, it’s a gentle sort of farce, tenderly played and set mostly to the speed at which the elder cast members perambulate.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2019
It doesn’t perambulate, but plummets with the graceful inevitability of a shot bird.
From New York Times ● May 10, 2018
I follow Nietzsche’s dictum that “only ideas won by walking have any value” and need to perambulate to really get my mind working.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 18, 2017
A second Act gave power to Commissioners to perambulate the whole realm and divide it into shires as they thought convenient, without further reference to Parliament.
From The New Irish Constitution by J. H. Morgan
They in turn are part of a broader florescence of nature-writing in Britain led by Robert Macfarlane, whose book, “The Old Ways”, perambulates around the country’s ancient byways.
From Economist ● Jul. 5, 2018
Volume changes into line, as our eye perambulates.
From Time Magazine Archive
After another crack on the noggin, Smothers perambulates into the '40s.
From Time Magazine Archive
And as the plot perambulates through three generations, the Kleenex-crumpling goes on and on for the better part of three hours.
From Time Magazine Archive
The female, painfully dragging her big abdomen, perambulates all the nooks and corners of her makeshift dwelling, exploring them with her palpi, which she passes everywhere.
From The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
The first edition of the Sherlock Holmes' adventure Hound Of The Baskervilles is signed with the comment: "I perambulated Dartmoor before I wrote this book," a reference to the book's setting.
From BBC ● Jul. 9, 2023
In 1884, he perambulated more than 3,000 miles from Ohio to L.A., writing newspaper dispatches along the way and becoming a sympathetic ethnographer of Native American culture.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 19, 2022
Everywhere barekneed youngsters in khaki perambulated through the streets with cameras and autograph books.
From Time Magazine Archive
I may well have promenaded, pedestrianized, peregrinated, ambulated, perambulated, circumambulated, hoofed, and locomoted ...
From Time Magazine Archive
It was a district of which he knew little, and for half an hour he perambulated its streets, wondering at the distinctly foreign atmosphere.
From The Herapath Property by J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
"It was then reported, that a mad woman was in the habit of disturbing the neighbours, by perambulating the church-yard and other walks, in strange and uncouth dresses," the magazine article added.
From Salon ● Oct. 28, 2022
The Bronx Zoo reopened last July, with timed tickets and reduced capacity, so, for a time, you could commune in relative privacy with rhinos and silverback gorillas, as though perambulating your own private nature preserve.
From New York Times ● Jul. 2, 2021
So the owner of the chickens addressed the matter by building a wire fence in her backyard, corralling the perambulating poultry.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2014
It ends with its perambulating audience gathered in a dank cellar, trying to figure out the code that will open a locked trunk.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 18, 2010
The halls—usually full of residents slowly perambulating from one area to the other or just sitting around chatting—were completely empty.
From "Not Nothing" by Gayle Forman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
