Home British & World English meandering

Definition of meandering in English:

meandering

adjective

  • 1Following a winding course.

    ‘meandering rivers flow at vastly different rates’
    • ‘Slowly the landscape changed as the two elementals followed the meandering river.’
    • ‘The humans pursued a meandering course through the forest.’
    • ‘The family acquired a former cereal farm, a 300 hectare spread extending along both sides of the meandering river Ega.’
    • ‘Built on seven hills and intersected by the meandering River Vltava, Prague offers a stunning array of architecture.’
    • ‘The last phase of the project converted the meandering Kissimmee River, the main watershed artery to Lake Okeechobee, into a formless drainage canal.’
    • ‘The centerpiece of Cumbler's story is the meandering Connecticut River, stretching from the border with Canada to the Atlantic Ocean.’
    • ‘Grids lay upon the landscape reducing meandering rivers and their jagged embankments to scenic enjoyments or inconveniences to overcome.’
    • ‘One antiqued gray-green shape suggests a Japanese stone lantern, while its surface mimes an aerial view of a meandering river.’
    • ‘A bank of lush vegetation separates the tree-lined driveway on one side from its boundary, which is defined by the meandering river Deelagh.’
    • ‘The rear garden is dotted with mature spruce trees and frames a view of the meandering Derry river, which provides a natural boundary for the property.’
    • ‘A journey on a Brisbane River ferry highlights the contrasting character of adjacent pockets within the meandering river.’
    • ‘The aptly titled venue was surrounded by a huge gorge, rolling bluffs and a meandering river.’
    • ‘In the avalanche of smells and sounds and sights on the crowded beach we had forgotten the twins, each of us assuming that they were following our meandering path.’
    • ‘Oxbow lakes are formed when river channels cut through their own meandering paths and form shorter courses, leaving standing bodies of water.’
    • ‘And the program includes almost all the states bordering the river, from its start as a meandering creek in northern Minnesota to its end at the Gulf of Mexico - 2,500 miles later.’
    • ‘The opening animated graphic is a meandering roadway which, after describing a few bends and curves, stops and emits skinny flagpoles flying the section headings.’
    • ‘He tossed all the company men overboard and took his rag tag crew on a meandering route to Barbados.’
    • ‘The space for each city was divided in two by a meandering path extending from Cario to Dakar.’
    • ‘But during my long, meandering walks through London, I marveled at the architecture, parks, and people.’
    • ‘I made the drive through the meandering roads of Montecito once a week.’
    winding, windy, zigzag, zigzagging, twisting, turning, curving, serpentine, sinuous, snaking, snaky, twisty, tortuous
    View synonyms
    1. 1.1Proceeding in a convoluted or undirected fashion.
      ‘a brilliant sample of meandering discourse’
      ‘a florid and rather meandering melody’
      • ‘The ensuing 86 minutes unfold in a slow, meandering fashion, yet somehow remain likeable even if nothing much happens.’
      • ‘When read straight through, the narrative digressions take the reader on a meandering path that resembles hypertextual linking.’
      • ‘Short and stylistically different than much of the rest of the album, it features Hayden in top vocal form, gently wrapping his words around a meandering piano melody.’
      • ‘The Namesake is a meandering narrative following Gogol, the American son of Bengali Indians who immigrated to Massachusetts during the 60s.’
      • ‘This episodic, meandering film follows the men as they wander the streets, hang out in bars and offer advice to each other.’
      • ‘Is it possible to purchase audio tapes of Mr Brown telling meandering stories which contain subliminal messages that will boost my confidence and competence?’
      • ‘I'd been attempting to answer them in her own meandering style, and was never entirely sure what I was saying.’
      • ‘If there is a point, it soon becomes lost in the meandering ending.’
      • ‘On offer are two formats: a limited edition double CD comprising all 120 meandering minutes, and a single CD which omits most of the second half of the set.’
      • ‘The film is meandering and self-indulgent in places, although the music, images and commentary occasionally combine to create moments of genuine beauty.’
      • ‘Instead, it turns into a meandering plod through confused politics and hinted rebellion that never really gets going until the final 20 minutes.’
      • ‘In these meandering reflections, neither Bacon the man nor Bacon the artist ever comes alive.’
      • ‘It's a quietly elegant film, with a meandering pace to reflect the setting.’
      • ‘The meandering blasts of flute that weave their way throughout lend the song a Chinese feel and make it quite enticing.’
      • ‘An album for long, meandering summer afternoons, Magic and Medicine is a quirky and imaginative bundle of joy.’
      • ‘Blessed with a running time polite enough to not overstay its welcome, it cuts a meandering swathe through a whole plethora of styles.’
      • ‘Where's this self indulgent, meandering twaddle going, I hear you cry, if indeed you're still reading.’
      • ‘Maybe I wasn't quite in the mood such a slow, meandering film.’
      • ‘Her meandering journey sometimes fails to engage.’
      • ‘This overly long melodrama from the Philipines suffers technical flaws like poor dubbing, patchy performances and a meandering narrative.’
      rambling, circuitous, roundabout, digressive, discursive, indirect, diffuse, tortuous, convoluted
      View synonyms

noun

usually meanderings

  • 1An act of following a winding course.

    ‘ox-bow lagoons left by the river's meanderings’
    • ‘Radlauer places her palm on the map showing the Mississippi's meanderings.’
    1. 1.1An act of wandering in a leisurely or aimless manner.
      ‘in the course of his meanderings through the city’
      • ‘Bath Walks records a series of meanderings around the City of Bath, identifying architectural details and revealing new relationships between the patches of buildings and its streets.’
      • ‘One distinguished exponent is Van Morrison, whose Astral Weeks album detailed his meanderings through Cyprus Avenue, a tree-lined road near his childhood home in east Belfast.’
      • ‘It was on one of these nocturnal meanderings that I spotted a young girl walking along about a block ahead of me.’
      • ‘Through their neighborhood meanderings and the example of their father, they grow to understand that the world isn't always fair and that prejudice is a very real aspect of their world no matter how subtle it seems.’
      • ‘My meanderings through the crowd had taken me back to the buffet tables where I'd managed to procure a glass of wine from among less palatable offerings.’
    2. 1.2mass noun Convoluted or undirected thought or language.
      ‘he has a penchant for obscure verbal meanderings’
      • ‘For example, the title track's obscured by excessive meandering, never giving any indication of the song's center, or the composition's significance.’
      • ‘Emerging from their apparently aimless meanderings came an essential truthfulness, a revelation of how things are.’
      • ‘Combined with this talent, Sellers had an incredible ability to improvise and wander away from the script in wild comic meanderings, which, on many occasions, prevented his co-star from keeping a straight face.’
      • ‘For you, then, we offer the following statistical meanderings.’
      • ‘But the play belongs to its two male leads and when they are on stage you forgive Gray's elegant meanderings.’
      • ‘The songs return and gone is the half-baked amalgamation of in-jokes and dubwise meanderings.’
      • ‘He has returned to an old stomping ground already trodden bare with the meanderings of various politicians, military experts, and intelligence operatives.’
      • ‘Unfortunately, the equality extends to the stilted acting, melodramatic meanderings, and too-convoluted plot twists of its erotic thriller pedigree.’
      • ‘The book is so full of events, meanderings, digressions, legends, conversations, and adventures, that a patient reader will never find his interest exhausted.’
      • ‘As such, his writings express the digressions, meanderings, meditations, ruminations and speculations that characterise a singular, idiosyncratic mind at work.’
      • ‘Tash bemusedly watched the meanderings of her increasingly inebriated castmates as Richard and Hugo attempted to create a way to play checkers with beer bottle tops.’
      • ‘I was stirred from my mental meanderings.’
      • ‘Some comedy ensues, but mostly grating, nihilistic meanderings.’
      • ‘Alas, she repeatedly hits the microphone to blast her listener with monotone meanderings, thus dampening the whole vibe.’
      • ‘After some scenes of topless women and some meanderings by the annoying characters, the mayhem starts.’
      • ‘Bley offers four meditative meanderings that lull the listener in, before surprising them with a new and unexpected turn.’
      • ‘And she closed the door somewhat forcefully to leave Charles in his moody meanderings.’
      • ‘Bharat's character remains that of a confused young man, whose mental meanderings border on the morose.’

Pronunciation

meandering

/mɪˈandərɪŋ/