Word.ws English Dictionary

meandering

meandering is the present participle and gerund of meander.

Meaning of meander

Verb

meander (third-person singular simple present meanders, present participle meandering, simple past and past participle meandered)

  1. (intransitive) To wind or turn in a course or passage
    • The stream meandered through the valley.
    Synonyms:
    wind, worm, wander
  2. (intransitive) To be intricate.
    • His speech meandered through various topics.
  3. (transitive) To wind, turn, or twist; to make flexuous.
    • Her labyrinth-like ţurns, and mad meander'd trace[…]1612, Michael Drayton, “(please specify the chapter)”, in [John Selden], editor, Poly-Olbion. Or A Chorographicall Description of Tracts, Riuers, Mountaines, Forests, and Other Parts of this Renowned...

See all 12 meanings of meander

Adjective

meandering (comparative more meandering, superlative most meandering)

  1. Winding or rambling.
    • After petrol rationing ended in 1952, the BTC was aware that more swingeing cuts had to be made, and a sinister message was conveyed by the loss of the meandering 38-mile route from Blisworth to Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1952, and the 25-mile Abergavenny-Merthyr Heads of the Valleys line in...2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 51
    • “Billups, how much farther to the compound?” “At our meandering speed, 15 minutes?”2024 October 31, Stephanie Amante-Ritter, “The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel” (12:44 from the start), in Star Trek: Lower Decks, season 5, episode 3, spoken by Andy Billups (Paul Scheer)

Noun

meandering (plural meanderings)

  1. An instance or period of roaming.

Forms of meandering

Adjective
comparativemore meandering
superlativemost meandering
Noun
pluralmeanderings

Words formed from meandering

Questions about meandering

What does meandering mean?
Meandering means winding or rambling.
What is meandering the present participle and gerund of?
Meandering is the present participle and gerund of meander.
What part of speech is meandering?
Meandering can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near meandering in the dictionary

  1. meandered
  2. meanderer
  3. meanderers
  4. meanderest
  5. meandereth
  6. meandering
  7. meanderingly
  8. meanderings
  9. meanders
  10. meandersome
  11. meanderthal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: meandering (page history and authors); meander (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “meandering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/meandering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.