- 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.
This first half is plotless and rambling, with a crime mystery yielding digressions within digressions within digressions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
The book also compared the UK to a "rambling stately home" in which the power was only on in some rooms.
From BBC ● Jun. 25, 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
The California Military Academy spent a spectacular few of its early years, circa 1906, on the water at Santa Monica, leasing out the rambling Victorian pile that had once been the Arcadia Hotel.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2026
For them, the rambling family house in Farmville was where they went on holidays and summer vacations, not a home they had left behind.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
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.
