- present participle of ramble.
rambling
Americanadjective
-
aimlessly wandering.
-
taking an irregular course; straggling.
a rambling brook.
-
spread out irregularly in various directions.
a rambling mansion.
-
straying from one subject to another; desultory.
a rambling novel.
- Synonyms:
- discursive
adjective
-
straggling or sprawling haphazardly; unplanned
a rambling old house
-
(of speech or writing) lacking a coherent plan; diffuse and disconnected
-
(of a plant, esp a rose) profusely climbing and straggling
-
nomadic; wandering
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of rambling
Explanation
The adjective rambling means confused and long-winded, the way you could describe your grandfather's endless rambling stories of his childhood. Rambling always means indirect and a little confusing, which can be a negative quality in a classroom lecture or movie plot — but when you're talking about a path through the woods, rambling is a charming way to describe it. You might love to hike through the woods on rambling trails that twist and turn. Rambling comes from the verb ramble, "walk or stroll," which is a variant on the older verb romen, "to walk, or to go," and related to "roam."
Vocabulary lists containing rambling
Talk the Talk: Synonyms for "Wordy"
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One of Us Is Lying
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"The History Teacher" by Billy Collins
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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.
But a New York judge flatly rejected the appeal, describing it as "lengthy and rambling".
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
In 1962, the Saar family moved to a rambling hillside home in Laurel Canyon, then a very rustic part of L.A.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026
“It was not possible for me to imagine a solution to the level of fragmentation, pain, and dysfunction I saw,” she writes, leaving readers without much justification for having followed her rambling, idiosyncratic quest.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
“Every time we talked about the prospect of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship,” he said during a long and at times rambling address.
From Barron's ● Jun. 17, 2026
Johnny’s father and namesake, the son of an Irish emigree who had become a Union Cavalryman, had spent his young adulthood rambling across the western Canadian wilderness in search of gold.
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
