The routes by which trade, encounters and learning reshaped English.
meander (v.)
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Words That Travelled
To meander is to wind slowly, as a river does, or a person with nowhere in particular to be. The word is the name of a river: Greek Maiandros, Latin Maeander.1
The river still runs. It is the Büyük Menderes, the longest river in western Türkiye, which once divided the ancient regions of Caria and Lydia.2
It was known for its bends. Strabo, writing about two thousand years ago, said its course was so winding that everything winding was called after it.3 Greeks already used the river’s name for winding patterns.1
English took the noun in the 1570s, first for an intricate confusion and from the 1590s for the bends of a river. The verb followed in the 1610s for a river’s winding flow, and by the 1830s a person could meander too.1
We meandered along the shore with no plan.