Synonyms

wandering

American

[won-der-ing] / ˈwɒn dər ɪŋ /

adjective

moving from place to place without a fixed plan; roaming; rambling.

Crowds of wandering tourists crossed the square.
having no permanent residence; nomadic.

They were historically a wandering people, moving seasonally through the area.
meandering; winding.

They followed a wandering path down the mountain.

noun

an aimless roving about; leisurely traveling from place to place.

For our honeymoon we had a period of delightful wandering through Italy.
Usually wanderings.
1. aimless travels; meanderings.
  
  Her wanderings took her all over the world.
2. disordered thoughts or utterances; incoherencies.
  
  mental wanderings;
  the wanderings of delirium.
seemingly aimless or random movement from one place to another by a person with a mental or cognitive disability or impairment.

Wandering by Alzheimer’s patients is a problem in nursing homes.

Other Word Forms

unwandering adjective
unwanderingly adverb
wanderingly adverb
wanderingness noun

Etymology

Origin of wandering

First recorded before 1000; Middle English (noun, adjective), Old English wandrigende (adjective); see wander ( def. ), -ing ² ( def. ), -ing ¹ ( def. )

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

These are the footpaths, bridleways and byways that people are legally entitled to use, even if it means wandering across a farmer's field or other private land.

From BBC • Apr. 18, 2026

Ask yourself when you’ve been happiest together—maybe when you were watching sports and ordering pizza, or wandering city streets and discovering eateries frequented by taxi drivers.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 16, 2026

However, this wandering also helped them navigate around one another.

From Science Daily • Apr. 15, 2026

Images released by local media showed it wandering in the middle of a road.

From Barron's • Apr. 9, 2026

As for our fellow refugees, maybe they had been too dazed, too traumatized, or just too tired to pay much attention to this young elephant that was wandering along with them.

From "An Elephant in the Garden" by Michael Morpurgo

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023