Meander

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /miˈæn.də(ɹ)/

Definitions

1. To navigate along a twisting and turning route
2. To proceed by following a curving or zigzag path ; to move without a set purpose or direction
3. To flow or travel along a bent or serpentine route ; to stroll or roam casually without destination

Etymology: The Maeander is a real river in western Asia Minor, now called the Menderes in modern Turkey, and it earned its fame from the way it twists back and forth across its floodplain on the way to the Aegean. Ancient Greeks knew it as Maíandros, and its name became a byword for anything that loops and doubles back on itself. Greek builders picked up the idea so thoroughly that the repeating looped border pattern we still call a meander is named after the river, not the other way round. The English verb took the river's name through Latin "Maeander" and kept the sense of a crooked, looping course. Used for a person or a path, it describes walking or travelling without a straight line, rather than wandering aimlessly in the sense of being lost. The noun for a winding bend in a river arrived with the same root, so a single ancient watercourse ended up supplying both a verb for a rambling walk and a decorative pattern found on temples and pottery.

Synonyms: wander, roam, drift, ramble, dawdle

Antonyms: stay, direct, focus