wandering

American

[won-der-ing] / ˈwɒn dər ɪŋ /

adjective

moving from place to place without a fixed plan; roaming; rambling.

Crowds of wandering tourists crossed the square.
having no permanent residence; nomadic.

They were historically a wandering people, moving seasonally through the area.
meandering; winding.

They followed a wandering path down the mountain.

noun

an aimless roving about; leisurely traveling from place to place.

For our honeymoon we had a period of delightful wandering through Italy.
Usually wanderings.
1. aimless travels; meanderings.
  
  Her wanderings took her all over the world.
2. disordered thoughts or utterances; incoherencies.
  
  mental wanderings;
  the wanderings of delirium.
seemingly aimless or random movement from one place to another by a person with a mental or cognitive disability or impairment.

Wandering by Alzheimer’s patients is a problem in nursing homes.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns

wanderings

plural

Etymology

Origin of wandering

First recorded before 1000; Middle English (noun, adjective), Old English wandrigende (adjective); see wander ( def. ), -ing ² ( def. ), -ing ¹ ( def. )

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:

wandering wanderings

Before long the dining room had red leather booths, a seaside mural on the wall, a bar in back and sometimes a wandering accordion player.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026

So some visitors may actually "relieve themselves in someone's garden", said Ondrik, who occasionally finds a tourist wandering into his own house.

From Barron's ● Jul. 3, 2026

Over the weeks I've seen shirts of all different countries wandering around the tourist spots of Los Angeles.

From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026

The biographical details may come from the author’s grandfather, but the character seems decidedly larger-than-life, a cross between Bruce Wayne, a Japanese ronin and an archetypal wandering Jew.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026

No telling what would happen if someone spotted him wandering around at this time of night!

From "Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher" by Bruce Coville

Born and raised in Israel, he began his wanderings in young adulthood, ultimately landing in America.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026

Inside this edition, Cranach's map presents the stations of the wilderness wanderings and the division of the Promised Land into twelve tribal regions.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 30, 2025

Susie, who is somewhat of a local celebrity in Dorchester, Dorset, has become so popular that an illustrated book has been published about her wanderings.

From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2025

Francis, meanwhile, continued his anthropological wanderings, carrying whatever insights or regrets he gained from that night into his studies of other cultures' sacred rituals.

From Salon ● Apr. 19, 2025

I pursued wanderings as wild as those of the March-spirit.

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023