Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To follow a winding and turning course.
- intransitive verb To move aimlessly and idly without fixed direction: synonym: wander.
- intransitive verb To speak or write in sustained fashion on a number of loosely connected topics.
- intransitive verb To be directed in various directions or at multiple objects.
- noun A bend, turn, or winding, as of a stream or path.
- noun A portion, side trip, or episode in a longer journey.
- noun A passage on a subtopic or digression in a longer piece of discourse.
- noun An ornamental pattern of winding or intertwining lines, used in art and architecture.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A winding course; a winding or turning in a passage; a maze; a labyrinth.
- noun An ornament composed of lines, neither representing nor suggesting any definite object, forming right or oblique angles with one another, or even curved with interlacings, etc. The name is used especially for the fret- or key-ornament.
- noun A path on which the directions, distances, and elevations are noted, as a part of a survey of a country.
- noun In physical geography, a self-developed river-curve suitable to the volume of the stream.
- To wind, turn, or flow round.
- To form into meanders; cause to twist about.
- To proceed by winding and turning; make frequent changes of course; move or flow intricately: as, a meandering river; to meander from point to point in a walk.
- To make a rough survey of a country by going over it, measuring the bearings, distances, and changes of elevation of the path pursued, and noting the positions of neighboring topographical features.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To wind, turn, or twist; to make flexuous.
- intransitive verb To wind or turn in a course or passage; to be intricate.
- noun A winding, crooked, or involved course.
- noun A tortuous or intricate movement.
- noun (Arch.) Fretwork. See
Fret .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun hydrology A winding, crooked, or involved course; as, the meanders of an old
river . - noun A
tortuous or intricate movement. - noun
Fretwork . - noun mathematics A self-avoiding
closed curve whichintersects aline a number of times. - verb To
wind ,turn , ortwist ; to makeflexuous ; towander
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb to move or cause to move in a sinuous, spiral, or circular course
- noun an aimless amble on a winding course
- noun a bend or curve, as in a stream or river
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Near the west coast of Asia Minor, a river named Meander, the river from which the word meander is coined, spills into a dismal swampy plain in the country that today is Turkey.
Euclid’s Window Leonard Mlodinow 2001
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Near the west coast of Asia Minor, a river named Meander, the river from which the word meander is coined, spills into a dismal swampy plain in the country that today is Turkey.
Euclid’s Window Leonard Mlodinow 2001
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Near the west coast of Asia Minor, a river named Meander, the river from which the word meander is coined, spills into a dismal swampy plain in the country that today is Turkey.
Euclid’s Window Leonard Mlodinow 2001
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The river was notable for its wandering course hence our modern term meander and in time it would silt up the entire bay between Priene and Miletus.
Alexander the Great Philip Freeman 2011
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The river was notable for its wandering course hence our modern term meander and in time it would silt up the entire bay between Priene and Miletus.
Alexander the Great Philip Freeman 2011
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The river was notable for its wandering course hence our modern term meander and in time it would silt up the entire bay between Priene and Miletus.
Alexander the Great Philip Freeman 2011
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The word meander derives via Greek from the name of this river in the antiquity, Maiandros.
Archive 2006-02-01 AYDIN 2006
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Though it did mean that I did a couple of placemats - I made up 8 or so of these from scrap pairs which I've been using as enders and leaders - I thought I'd practice some of the 72 ways not to stipple or meander from the new Dijanne Cevaal book I got - the placemat on left is actually from the other day and has a leaf type meander, the one on the right has a "paisley" design - wavy lines, with straight lines and dots down the middle.
Placemats & stuff katelnorth 2008
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Instead, the Grand Canyon has a winding course called an entrenched meander from the Latin maendere, “to wander”.
The Source John Clayton Nils Jansma 2001
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Instead, the Grand Canyon has a winding course called an entrenched meander from the Latin maendere, “to wander”.
The Source John Clayton Nils Jansma 2001
whichbe commented on the word meander
To follow a winding and turning, seemingly random or chaotic course. Curvatious windings or sinuosities, as of a stream or path. May refer, in Greek art and architecture, to a fret or key pattern. Meanders are among the ten classes of patterns. (From ArtLex)
June 5, 2008
trivet commented on the word meander
Named for a river in what is now Turkey.
Wiki sez:
The term derives from the river known to the ancient Greeks as (Μαίανδ�?ος) Maiandros or Maeander, characterised by a very convoluted path along the lower reach. As such, even in Classical Greece the name of the river had become a common noun meaning anything convoluted and winding, such as decorative patterns or speech and ideas, as well as the geomorphological feature. Strabo said: "... its course is so exceedingly winding that everything winding is called meandering."
The Meander River is located in present-day Turkey, south of Izmir, eastward the ancient Greek town of Miletus, now Turkish Milet. It flows through a graben in the Menderes Massif, but has a flood plain much wider than the meander zone in its lower reach. In the Turkish name, the Büyük Menderes River, Menderes is from "Meander".
October 14, 2008
frindley commented on the word meander
Also the name of a river (and valley and town) in Tasmania, Australia. Furthermore, Tasmanian choreographer Graeme Murphy created a ballet called Meander (music by Sibelius).
March 23, 2009
fbharjo commented on the word meander
How did Thales cross the meander? The first pre-Socratic 'why did the chicken cross the road? ' philosophic question.
Look at what it has wrought (geworht)!
September 17, 2012