Synonyms

meandering

American

[mee-an-der-ing] / miˈæn dər ɪŋ /

adjective

taking a winding or indirect course.

The city of Budapest is divided into two parts by the meandering Danube River, spanned by several stunning bridges.
wandering aimlessly; proceeding seemingly without direction; rambling.

I'm unsure how I will condense a meandering narrative of my experiences into a thirty-second elevator pitch.
Things proceed in a meandering way between them, until suddenly their relationship comes to a devastatingly emotional climax.

noun

the act of wandering or proceeding aimlessly or by a winding or indirect course.

I digress—but I blame it on the mental meandering of age.
After a coffee and some meandering among the displays on the hotel mezzanine, I left the convention.

Other Word Forms

meanderingly adverb
unmeandering adjective
unmeanderingly adverb

Etymology

Origin of meandering

First recorded in 1610–20; meander ( def. ) + -ing ² ( def. ) for the adjective senses; meander ( def. ) + -ing ¹ ( def. ) for the noun sense

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.

Today, after a meandering back and forth about the character, she admits, “I suppose I still need to gather my own point of view on her.”

From Los Angeles Times

Occasionally the wiggles get bigger and that can result in big curves in the flow - like a meandering river.

From BBC

But a handful still survive — routes that don’t carve a straight line but follow the meandering, undulating contours of the land.

From Los Angeles Times

“The Housemaid” stumbles, and it doesn’t help that Sweeney spends much of the film meandering throughout its narrative like a piece of driftwood that keeps washing back onto the shore.

From Salon

He used a meandering conversation and a few hours to get AI to build Sprout Gifts, a gifting registry for kids, and an app to appraise any items via photos.

From Los Angeles Times

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