Raveller

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An individual who traverses various destinations primarily for enjoyment
2. Someone who journeys from place to place, often exploring new locations
3. An individual engaging in trips to experience different places and cultures

Etymology: "Raveller" is a plain agent noun: "ravel" with the suffix "-er" added to name someone who does the action. The trick is in the verb. "Ravel" is an English verb with a textile origin, meaning to untangle or separate the threads of a woven or knitted fabric, and also, in the opposite direction, to tangle them up. Its sense of tangling is the one that seems to have given English the idea of confusion, and the verb has been used for things coming apart as well as things becoming knotted. The suffix "-er" comes from Old English, where it formed agent nouns from verbs, so a baker bakes and a writer writes. Attaching it to "ravel" produces a word for someone who unravels or travels in a tangled, roundabout way, though in practice the word has a narrow and somewhat old-fashioned use. Dictionaries record it chiefly with the sense of someone who travels, which is a surprising shift from the textile meaning, since nothing about the cloth-working verb obviously points toward journeys.

Synonyms: traveler, voyager