The Wandering Star/On Wandering

on 'wandering'

dict wandering


5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Wandering \Wan"der*ing\,
     a. & n. from {Wander}, v.
     [1913 Webster]
  
     {Wandering albatross} (Zool.), the great white albatross. See
        Illust. of {Albatross}.
  
     {Wandering cell} (Physiol.), an animal cell which possesses
        the power of spontaneous movement, as one of the white
        corpuscles of the blood.
  
     {Wandering Jew} (Bot.), any one of several creeping species
        of {Tradescantia}, which have alternate, pointed leaves,
        and a soft, herbaceous stem which roots freely at the
        joints. They are commonly cultivated in hanging baskets,
        window boxes, etc.
  
     {Wandering kidney} (Med.), a morbid condition in which one
        kidney, or, rarely, both kidneys, can be moved in certain
        directions; -- called also {floating kidney}, {movable
        kidney}.
  
     {Wandering liver} (Med.), a morbid condition of the liver,
        similar to wandering kidney.
  
     {Wandering mouse} (Zool.), the whitefooted, or deer, mouse.
        See Illust. of {Mouse}.
  
     {Wandering spider} (Zool.), any one of a tribe of spiders
        that wander about in search of their prey.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Wander \Wan"der\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Wandered}; p. pr. & vb.
     n. {Wandering}.] [OE. wandren, wandrien, AS. wandrian; akin
     to G. wandern to wander; fr. AS. windan to turn. See {Wind}
     to turn.]
     [1913 Webster]
     1. To ramble here and there without any certain course or
        with no definite object in view; to range about; to
        stroll; to rove; as, to wander over the fields.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins.
                                                    --Heb. xi. 37.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              He wandereth abroad for bread.        --Job xv. 23.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. To go away; to depart; to stray off; to deviate; to go
        astray; as, a writer wanders from his subject.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              When God caused me to wander from my father's house.
                                                    --Gen. xx. 13.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              O, let me not wander from thy commandments. --Ps.
                                                    cxix. 10.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. To be delirious; not to be under the guidance of reason;
        to rave; as, the mind wanders.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: To roam; rove; range; stroll; gad; stray; straggly; err;
          swerve; deviate; depart.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  wandering
       adj 1: (of groups of people) tending to travel and change
              settlements frequently; "a restless mobile society";
              "the nomadic habits of the Bedouins"; "believed the
              profession of a peregrine typist would have a happy
              future"; "wandering tribes" [syn: {mobile}, {nomadic},
               {peregrine}, {roving}]
       2: of a path e.g.; "meandering streams"; "rambling forest
          paths"; "the river followed its wandering course"; "a
          winding country road" [syn: {meandering(a)}, {rambling}, {wandering(a)},
           {winding}]
       3: having no fixed course; "an erratic comet"; "his life
          followed a wandering course"; "a planetary vagabond" [syn:
           {erratic}, {planetary}]
       n : travelling about without any clear destination; "she
           followed him in his wanderings and looked after him"
           [syn: {roving}, {vagabondage}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  341 Moby Thesaurus words for "wandering":
     Wanderjahr, aberrancy, aberrant, aberration, aberrative, abnormal,
     adrift, afebrile delirium, afloat, afoot and lighthearted, aimless,
     aimlessness, alternating, ambulant, amorphous, anomalistic,
     anomalous, babbling, bend, bereft of reason, bias, brainsick,
     brainstorm, branching off, broken, bumming, by the way, capricious,
     careening, casual, catchy, changeable, changeful, choppy,
     circuitous, circuitousness, circumforaneous, corner, crackbrained,
     cracked, crazed, crazy, crook, curve, daft, declination, delirious,
     deliriousness, delirium, deluded, demented, departing, departure,
     deprived of reason, deranged, desultoriness, desultory, detour,
     deviable, deviance, deviancy, deviant, deviating, deviation,
     deviative, deviatory, devious, deviousness, different, digression,
     digressive, digressiveness, disarticulated, disconnected,
     discontinuous, discursion, discursive, discursiveness, disjunct,
     disordered, disoriented, dispersed, disproportionate, distracted,
     distrait, distraught, divagation, divagatory, divarication,
     divergence, divergent, diversion, dizzy, dogleg, double, drift,
     drifting, eccentric, episodic, errant, errantry, erratic,
     excursion, excursive, excursus, exorbitation, fast and loose,
     fickle, fitful, flickering, flighty, flitting, floating,
     fluctuating, footloose, footloose and fancy-free, formless,
     frantic, freakish, frivolous, fugitive, gadding, giddy, gratuitous,
     guttering, gypsy-like, gypsyish, hairpin, hallucinated, halting,
     haphazard, herky-jerky, heteroclite, heteromorphic, hit-or-miss,
     hoboism, immethodical, impetuous, impulsive, inchoate, incoherence,
     incoherent, inconsistent, inconstant, indecisive, indirect,
     indirection, indiscriminate, infirm, insane, intermittent,
     intermitting, irrational, irregular, irresolute, irresponsible,
     itineracy, itinerancy, jerky, labyrinthine, landloping,
     lightheaded, lingual delirium, loco, loose, lunatic, lurching, mad,
     maddened, manic, maundering, mazed, mazy, meandering, meaningless,
     mental, mentally deficient, mercurial, meshuggah, migrational,
     migratory, misshapen, moody, moon-struck, nomad, nomadic, nomadism,
     non compos, non compos mentis, nonsymmetrical, nonsystematic,
     nonuniform, not all there, not right, obliquity, odd,
     of unsound mind, off, orderless, out-of-the-way, patchy,
     perambulatory, peregrination, pererration, planetary, planless,
     promiscuous, psycho, queer, ramble, rambling, random, ranging,
     ranting, raving, reasonless, restless, roam, roaming, rough, rove,
     roving, scatterbrained, scrappy, senseless, serpentine, shapeless,
     sheer, shift, shifting, shifting course, shifting path, shifty,
     shuffling, sick, skew, slant, snaky, snatchy, spasmatic, spasmic,
     spasmodic, spastic, spineless, sporadic, spotty, staggering,
     stark-mad, stark-staring mad, straggling, straggly, strange, stray,
     straying, strolling, subnormal, sweep, swerve, swerving, swinging,
     systemless, tack, tetched, touched, traipsing, transient,
     transitory, transmigratory, turn, turning, twist, twisting,
     unaccountable, unarranged, unbalanced, uncertain, unclassified,
     uncontrolled, undependable, undirected, undisciplined, unequal,
     uneven, unfixed, ungraded, unhinged, unjoined, unmethodical,
     unmetrical, unnatural, unordered, unorganized, unpredictable,
     unregular, unreliable, unrestrained, unrhythmical, unsane,
     unsettled, unsorted, unsound, unstable, unstable as water, unstaid,
     unsteadfast, unsteady, unsymmetrical, unsystematic, ununiform,
     vacillating, vagabond, vagabondage, vagabondia, vagabondism,
     vagrancy, vagrant, vague, variable, variation, veer, veering,
     vicissitudinary, vicissitudinous, volatile, wanderlust, wanton,
     warp, wavering, wavery, wavy, wayfaring, wayward, whimsical, wild,
     winding, wishy-washy, witless, wobbling, wobbly, yaw, zigzag
  
  

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Wandering
     of the Israelites in the wilderness in consequence of their
     rebellious fears to enter the Promised Land (Num. 14:26-35).
     They wandered for forty years before they were permitted to
     cross the Jordan (Josh. 4:19; 5:6).
     
       The record of these wanderings is given in Num. 33:1-49. Many
     of the stations at which they camped cannot now be identified.
     
       Questions of an intricate nature have been discussed regarding
     the "Wanderings," but it is enough for us to take the sacred
     narrative as it stands, and rest assured that "He led them forth
     by the right way" (Ps. 107:1-7, 33-35). (See {WILDERNESS}.)