wandering

wandering
    adj 1: migratory; "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},
           {wandering}]
    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}, {wandering}]
    n 1: travelling about without any clear destination; "she
         followed him in his wanderings and looked after him" [syn:
         {wandering}, {roving}, {vagabondage}]
    

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]
    

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]
    

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}.)
    

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