| / English Dictionary |
RAMBLING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Of a path e.g.
Example:
a winding country road
Synonyms:
meandering; rambling; wandering; winding
Classified under:
Similar:
indirect (not direct in spatial dimension; not leading by a straight line or course to a destination)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(of e.g. speech and writing) tending to depart from the main point or cover a wide range of subjects
Example:
a rambling speech about this and that
Synonyms:
digressive; discursive; excursive; rambling
Classified under:
Similar:
indirect (extended senses; not direct in manner or language or behavior or action)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Spreading out in different directions or distributed irregularly
Example:
straggly hair
Synonyms:
rambling; sprawling; straggling; straggly
Classified under:
Similar:
untidy (not neat and tidy)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb ramble
Context examples:
‘You must know,’ said he, ‘that though I am a bachelor, I have to keep up a considerable staff of servants at Hurlstone, for it is a rambling old place, and takes a good deal of looking after.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children ever, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead!
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Instead of rambling this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the countryside—East Egg condescending to West Egg, and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gayety.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
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