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Meander   /miˈændər/   Listen
Meander

noun
1.
A bend or curve, as in a stream or river.
2.
An aimless amble on a winding course.  Synonym: ramble.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Meander" Quotes from Famous Books



... lavishes on cities, and perchance as it has never set before—where there is but a solitary marsh hawk to have his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed ...
— Walking • Henry David Thoreau

... house the road showed a tendency to meander, and as I was getting pretty hungry and counted on luncheon with the laird, be he patriot or traitor, I left the highway and followed a path across a clover field. Though the house and its farm were so near, and I could see half ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston

... is the long bent or sedge, shooting rankly up among the sweeter grass, and telling surely of land overcharged with water. There is no escape from the fact that Ireland as a country is cursed with defective natural drainage. The fall of the greater rivers is so slight that they meander hither and thither in "S's," as they say here, and only require a little surplus on the average rainfall to overflow the more valuable land. And it is astonishing how quickly good land left untilled reverts to its primeval condition, or, ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... cover the graves of their dead. On the nearer side from off to left appeared a smaller stream which wound across the meadow and emptied into the Swan. At intervals during the day their trail had bordered this little river, which Clare had christened the Meander. ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... meander lazily, inviting swarms of insects to their boggy shores, make ideal hunting grounds for the Acadian flycatcher. It chooses a low rather than a high, conspicuous perch, that other members of its family invariably select; and from such a lookout it may be seen launching into the air after the passing ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... sweetest Nymph that liv'st unseen Within thy airy shell By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet imbroider'd vale Where the love-lorn Nightingale Nightly to thee ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... What could Louise do but listen to his blandishments? And when a young lady listens once, the poet tells us, she "will listen twice." Thus it came to pass that before Julius Westfall had been long gone—perhaps before he was even half seas over—Mr. Nisson began to meander around with Miss Ruff, to quaff the foaming lager, and to be on hand in the Bowery Garden when the band began ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... Hodgkins would meander down the lane, and if fortune favored her, would find at the next farm-house its mistress possibly at the well or sunning her milk pans in a corner ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks

... Among a hundred others never used but once, we have magical, mirthful, mightful, mirth-moving, moonbeams, moss-grown, mundane, motto, matin, mural, multipotent, mourningly, majestically, marbled, martyred, mellifluous, mountainous, meander, magnificence, magnanimity, mockable, merriness, masterdom, masterpiece, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... Be unto certain creatures suited more For ends of life, by virtue of a nature, A texture, and primordial shapes, unlike For kinds alike. Then too 'tis thine to see How many things oppressive be and foul To man, and to sensation most malign: Many meander miserably through ears; Many in-wind athrough the nostrils too, Malign and harsh when mortal draws a breath; Of not a few must one avoid the touch; Of not a few must one escape the sight; And some there be all loathsome to the taste; And many, besides, relax the ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... escape till it has traversed the whole continent to the eastward, and reached the Black Sea. This stream is the Danube. And finally, on the north the immense number of cascades and torrents which come out from the glaciers, or pour down the ravines, or meander through the valleys, or issue from the lakes, of the northern slope of the mountains, combine at Basle, and flow north across the whole continent, nearly six hundred miles, to the North Sea. ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott

... dwellings. From the castle you look down on roofs, brown tiles and chimney-pots, set one above the other like a big card-castle. Each house has its foot on a neighbour's neck, and its shoulder set against the native stone. The streets meander in and out, and up and down, overarched and balconied, but very clean. They swarm with children, healthy, happy, little monkeys, who grow fat on salt fish and yellow polenta, with oil and sun ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... buckle, spiral, helix, corkscrew, worm, volute, rundle; tendril; scollop^, scallop, escalop^; kink; ammonite, snakestone^. serpent, eel, maze, labyrinth. knot. V. be convoluted &c adj.; wind, twine, turn and twist, twirl; wave, undulate, meander; inosculate^; entwine, intwine^; twist, coil, roll; wrinkle, curl, crisp, twill; frizzle; crimp, crape, indent, scollop^, scallop, wring, intort^; contort; wreathe &c (cross) 219. Adj. convoluted; winding, twisted &c v.; tortile^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... me. Just as soon as you people hie forth, off comes this b'iled shirt, and I shall probably meander around the house in my new silk pajamas. I shall read a little from Homer—Jack, let me have the key to that locked case; I've an idea that there must be some robust old, merry old tales hidden there—and ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... sencation, and Rose came fourth to meander in mid-air. Admeration was at its hight, as she swayed too and frow as it were a winged ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... building of a narrow-gauge road from one end of the island to the other. It was agreed that the contractors should be paid 5000 pounds a mile in provincial debentures, but without any stipulation as to the total length, so that the builders caused the railway to meander and zigzag freely in search of lower grades or long paying stretches. In 1873, which was everywhere a year of black depression, it was found that these debentures, which were pledged by the contractors to a local bank for advances, ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... in a little warm shed offen the wood house for quite a spell, but still I used to find it considerable cold when I would meander out there in a icy night to feed it. But jest as it is always the way with wimmen, the more care I took on it, the more it needed me and depended on me, the better I ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... like thyself, gigantic. Yet let me bless, in humbler strain, Thy vast, thy bold Cambysian[4] vein, Pour'd out t' enrich thy native isle, As Egypt wont to be with Nile. O, how I joy to see thee wander, In many a winding loose meander, In circling mazes, smooth and supple, And ending in a clink quadruple; Loud, yet agreeable withal, Like rivers rattling in their fall! Thine, sure, is poetry divine, Where wit and majesty combine; Where every line, as huge as seven, If stretch'd in length, would reach to ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... don't get foundered on the green truck,' I says. 'A bran mash now and then and a wisp of cured timothy hay about once in so long ought to keep off the grass colic,' I says. 'Come on, little playmate,' I says to Sweet Caps, 'let us meander further into this here vale of plenty of everything except something to eat. Which, by rights,' I says, 'its real name ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... thou grand legitimate Alexander! Her son's son, let not this last phrase offend Thine ear, if it should reach—and now rhymes wander Almost as far as Petersburgh and lend A dreadful impulse to each loud meander Of murmuring Liberty's wide waves, which blend Their roar even with the Baltic's—so you be Your father's son, 'tis quite enough ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... ground between them a serpentine irregularity? Even in the most spacious grounds the walks should not seem too studiously winding, as if the short turns were meant for no other purpose than to perplex or delay the walker.[118] They should have a natural sweep, and seem to meander rather in accordance with the nature of the ground and the points to which they lead than in obedience to some idle sport of fancy. They should not remind us of Gray's description of the ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... is not in the power even of God to make a polite soldier.' Meander; quoted by Hume, Essays, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... dixti velle te; Quia solae utuntur his reginae—Terent. Eunuch. act i. scene 2. This play is translated from Meander, and the original must have appeared soon after the eastern ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... flit across my visual camera. Does that enfranchised soul look down from far observatory height at wave-rocked ship like mature manhood on baby rock-a-by? Fanned by soothing breezes of emerald-hued sea, does this glad convalescent meander at will along either tree-fringed shore, with happy child-impulsiveness gathering bouquets of that foliage which is for the ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... very bright, cheery morning of that spring a canoe might have been seen slowly ascending one of the numerous streams which meander through a richly-wooded fertile country, and mingle their waters with those of the Athabasca River, terminating their united career in a large lake of the same name. The canoe was small—one of the kind used by the natives while engaged in hunting, and capable of holding only two ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... restrained in their courses by banks; when left free they are continually changing their beds. Their courses at first sight seem to follow no rule, but, as it is termed, from a celebrated river of Asia Minor, to "meander" along without aim or object, though in fact they follow very ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... start of Luclarion in this "meander,"—as their father called the vale of tears,—by just two years' time, and was y-clipped, by everybody but his mother "Mark,"—in his turn, as they grew old together, cut his sister down to "Luke." Then Luther Grapp called them both "The Apostles." And not far ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... is expressed by certain recurring wave-lines, which remind us of the ancient linear symbols of the zigzag and meander used from the earliest times to express water. In the streams that channel the sands of the sea-shore when the tide recedes we may see beautiful flowing lines, sometimes crossing like a network, and sometimes running into a series ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane

... row (So these Always go). Down-hill They meander, Tail to bill; First the gander. So they stalked, Bold as brass As they walked To ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle

... rightful home and storehouse. Thither now withdraw thy forces, Thither hasten, swiftly flowing; Flow no more as crimson currents, Fill no longer crimson lakelets, Must not rush like brooks in spring-tide, Nor meander like the rivers. "Cease thy flow, by word of magic, Cease as did the falls of Tyrya, As the rivers of Tuoni, When the sky withheld her rain-drops, When the sea gave up her waters, In the famine of the seasons, In the years ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... historic art study until you are convinced. On the other hand, it is not necessary to carry your artistry so far that you build a fence of nothing but cedar logs touching one another, or that you cover your entire door with a meander of wrought iron which culminates in a small bolt. Enthusiastic followers of the Arts and Crafts movement often go to morbid extremes. Recognition of material and method does not connote a display of method and material out of proportion to the demands of the article to be constructed. ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... banished from Athens, and in the court of Minos, king of Crete, he found a refuge. He put all his mighty powers at the service of Minos, and for him designed an intricate labyrinth which, like the river Meander, had neither beginning nor ending, but ever returned on itself in hopeless intricacy. Soon he stood high in the favour of the king, but, ever greedy for power, he incurred, by one of his daring inventions, the wrath of Minos. The angry monarch threw him into ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... And Tethys bare to Ocean eddying rivers, Nilus, and Alpheus, and deep-swirling Eridanus, Strymon, and Meander, and the fair stream of Ister, and Phasis, and Rhesus, and the silver eddies of Achelous, Nessus, and Rhodius, Haliacmon, and Heptaporus, Granicus, and Aesepus, and holy Simois, and Peneus, and Hermus, and Caicus fair stream, and great Sangarius, Ladon, ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod

... peruse But thoughts meander far away— Ideas, desires and woes confuse His intellect in close array. His eyes, the printed lines betwixt, On lines invisible are fixt; 'Twas these he read and these alone His spirit was intent upon. They were the wonderful traditions ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... infinitesimal splinters from the planks which are utilized for both streets and sidewalks. We rattle along East and intersecting streets until we reach Sansome, upon which we proceed to Bush, which practically bounds the business district on the south, thence we meander by a circuitous route to Laurel Hill Cemetery near Lone Mountain. A guide is almost necessary. An incoming stranger once asked the conductor to let him off at the American Exchange, which the car ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... Louisiana, is an alluvial plain extending for fifty miles, through which meander many small streams, or bayous, as they are termed in the language of the country. Upon most of these the surface of the soil is slightly elevated above the plane of the swamp, and is remarkably fertile. Most of these were, at the commencement of the late war, in a high state of cultivation ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... Heraclea in Lydia, and at Magnesium on the Meander or Magnesium at Sipylos, all in Asia Minor. It was called the "Heraclean Stone" by the people, but came at length to bear the name of "Magnet" after the city of Magnesia or the mythical shepherd ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro

... See! bursting from her parent hill, Sumagadhi, a lovely rill, Bright gleaming as she flows between The mountains, like a wreath is seen— And then through Magadh's plains and groves With many a fair meander roves. And this was Vasu's old domain, The fertile Magadh's broad champaign, Which smiling fields of tilth adorn And diadem with golden corn. The queen Ghritachi, nymph most fair, Married to Kusanabha, bare A hundred daughters lovely faced, With every charm and beauty graced. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... Muse, nae poet ever fand her, Till by himsel he learn'd to wander, Adown some trotting burn's meander An' no think't lang." ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall

... surface is a succession of hills and dales, or, to speak with greater deference to geographical definitions, of mountains and valleys. It is among these hills that the Delaware takes its rise; and flowing from the limpid lakes and thousand springs of this region the numerous sources of the Susquehanna meander through the valleys until, uniting their streams, they form one of the proudest rivers of the United States. The mountains are generally arable to the tops, although instances are not wanting where the sides are jutted ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper



Words linked to "Meander" :   stroll, perambulation, promenade, ramble, watercourse, saunter, stream, curve, oxbow, travel, go, locomote, curved shape, wind, snake, thread, amble, weave, wander, move



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