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

"A few days ago, they were wandering near the city’s library and cinema," said Zioutis, who estimates that he has photographed more than 100 different bears since early 2025.

From Barron's ● Jul. 9, 2026

The positioning remained impressively accurate, without the blind spots or wandering location dots that often plague consumer pet trackers.

From Slate ● Jun. 20, 2026

"I had no food at the hotel, and I was just wandering around this town in Wales, and I couldn't find anything to eat," she said.

From BBC ● Jun. 15, 2026

Only a blink of time had passed, and wandering souls weren’t privy to these visions from the Afterlife.

From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman

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

After that, his unclaimed body began its wanderings: as a greeter for an Oklahoma funeral home, as a sideshow attraction for touring carnivals, and even in a titillating 1933 pre-Code film, “Narcotic.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 4, 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

Finally, at the end of all our wanderings, we return to our tiny, fragile, blue-white world, lost in a cosmic ocean vast beyond our most courageous imaginings.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

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