itinerant

[ ahy-tin-er-uhnt, ih-tin- ]

adjective

1. traveling from place to place, especially on a circuit, as a minister, judge, or sales representative; itinerating; journeying.

   Synonyms: peripatetic, roving, unsettled, migratory, nomadic, wandering

   Antonyms: settled

2. characterized by such traveling:

   itinerant preaching.

3. working in one place for a comparatively short time and then moving on to work in another place, usually as a physical or outdoor laborer; characterized by alternating periods of working and wandering:

   an itinerant farm hand.

   Synonyms: peripatetic, roving, unsettled, migratory, nomadic, wandering

noun

1. a person who alternates between working and wandering.
2. a person who travels from place to place, especially for duty or business.

itinerant

/ ɪˈtɪnərənt; aɪ- /

adjective

1. itinerating
2. working for a short time in various places, esp as a casual labourer

noun

1. an itinerant worker or other person

Derived Forms

• iˈtinerantly, adverb

Other Words From

• i·tiner·ant·ly adverb
• uni·tiner·ant adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of itinerant¹

1560–70; < Late Latin itinerant- (stem of itinerāns ), present participle of itinerārī to journey, equivalent to itiner- (stem of iter ) journey ( iter ) + -ant- -ant

Word History and Origins

Origin of itinerant¹

C16: from Late Latin itinerārī to travel, from iter a journey

Example Sentences

Instead, the 101-year-old recalls a childhood marked by grueling labor and an itinerant lifestyle.

From Time

Nomadland, a drama about itinerant workers traveling the American West, won best picture.

From Quartz

Now those orange itinerants are showing up in far fewer numbers.

From Washington Post

Fern’s friend Linda May tips her off to an annual gathering of “nomads,” as the itinerant older seasonal workers call themselves.

From Vox

Neutral backgrounds free of visual distractions can help even more, says Carola Martinez, an itinerant teacher of deaf and hard-of-hearing students in New York City public schools.

From Popular-Science

Unlike Brunner, Remer was itinerant, and spent much time in that other nest of postwar Nazis—Cairo.

From The Daily Beast

Bright is forty-five now, a baseball itinerant since the day he signed a contract with the Yankees at the age of sixteen.

From The Daily Beast

In the meantime, he continued his itinerant existence, sometimes living for months in his Airstream trailer with no phone.

From The Daily Beast

This 13th-century fresco of a lion was painted near Burgos in Spain, probably by an itinerant English artist from Winchester.

From The Daily Beast

The same might be said of another delicately handsome itinerant, T. E. Lawrence.

From The Daily Beast

She is thirty-five now, quite plain, and makes a living as a sort of itinerant housekeeper and caterer.

From Project Gutenberg

This itinerant merchant was commissioned to haunt the Kano gate until impatience or curiosity should fling it wide for him.

From Project Gutenberg

The circuits of the Justices Itinerant were restored, and appeals to the king in Council were established.

From Project Gutenberg

The Collahuayas of Peru were a guild of itinerant quacks and magicians, who never remained permanently in one spot.

From Project Gutenberg

Its chapels multiplied in the great towns, and its itinerant missionaries penetrated to the most secluded districts.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• nomadic
• peripatetic
• roving
• wandering