perambulation

Noun

perambulation (countable and uncountable, plural perambulations)

1. (rare) A survey, a tour; an instance of walking around.
   • If any Man for that reaſon has an Inclination to divert himſelf, and Sail with me round the Globe, to ſuperviſe almoſt all the Conditions of Humane Life, without being infected with the Vanities, and Vices that attend such a Whimſical Perambulation; let him follow me, who am going to Relate it in a...1700, Tom Brown, Amusements Serious and Comical, calculated for the Meridian of London, page 10
   • The month of May had already commenced[…] when Henry proposed a pedestrian tour in the environs of Ingolstadt[…] We passed a fortnight in these perambulations: my health and spirits had long been restored, and they gained additional strength from the salubrious air I breathed, the natural incidents...1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter 6, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for...
2. An English legal ceremony in which an official from a town or parish walks around it to delineate and record its boundaries.
   • Another forest not named in the perambulation is that of Horwich.1902, Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, published by the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society
   • The earliest known reference to the stone is that in the perambulation of the parish of Puddletown recorded in the Cartulary of Christchurch Priory.1929, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, published by the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society

   Synonyms:

   bannering

3. The district thus inspected.