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
Derived 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.
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
Drake still has an impeccable ear for production and an incredible talent for hook-writing, much in the same way that Trump knows how to make rambling sentences sing via his unorthodox delivery.
From Salon • May 21, 2026
Tech workers are walking around talking to AI, pairing dictation apps with coding tools to turn rambling prompts into usable text in seconds—a process that can be both efficient and obnoxious.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 15, 2026
Great on the financial details, but he needs improvement on his delivery—too many rambling answers—and on capital allocation messaging.
From Barron's • May 3, 2026
A dead Chubs wouldn’t smile, spout off rambling sentences, wouldn’t pout, wouldn’t laugh—a dead Chubs was unimaginable.
From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken
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.
