[syn: meandering(a), rambling, wandering(a), winding]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Rambling \Ram"bling\ (r[a^]m"bl[i^]ng), a.
Roving; wandering; discursive; as, a rambling fellow, talk,
or building.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Ramble \Ram"ble\ (r[a^]m"b'l), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Rambled
(r[a^]m"b'ld); p. pr. & vb. n. Rambling (r[a^]m"bl[i^]ng).]
[For rammle, fr. Prov. E. rame to roam. Cf. Roam.]
1. To walk, ride, or sail, from place to place, without any
determinate object in view; to roam carelessly or
irregularly; to rove; to wander; as, to ramble about the
city; to ramble over the world.
[1913 Webster]
He that is at liberty to ramble in perfect darkness,
what is his liberty better than if driven up and
down as a bubble by the wind? --Locke.
[1913 Webster]
2. To talk or write in a discursive, aimless way.
[1913 Webster]
3. To extend or grow at random. --Thomson.
[1913 Webster]
Syn: To rove; roam; wander; range; stroll.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
rambling
adj 1: spreading out in different directions; "sprawling
handwriting"; "straggling branches"; "straggly hair"
[syn: sprawling, straggling, rambling, straggly]
2: (of e.g. speech and writing) tending to depart from the main
point or cover a wide range of subjects; "amusingly
digressive with satirical thrusts at women's fashions among
other things"; "a rambling discursive book"; "his excursive
remarks"; "a rambling speech about this and that" [syn:
digressive, discursive, excursive, rambling]
3: of a path e.g.; "meandering streams"; "rambling forest
paths"; "the river followed its wandering course"; "a winding
country road" [syn: meandering(a), rambling,
wandering(a), winding]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
288 Moby Thesaurus words for "rambling":
Greek to one, Wanderjahr, aberrancy, aberrant, aberration,
aberrative, adrift, afloat, afoot and lighthearted, aimless,
aimlessness, alternating, ambagious, ambiguous, amorphous,
babbling, bend, beyond understanding, bias, branching off, broken,
bumming, by the way, capricious, careening, catchy, changeable,
changeful, choppy, circuitous, circuitousness, circumforaneous,
circumlocutional, circumlocutory, confused, corner, crook, curve,
declination, delirious, departing, departure, desultoriness,
desultory, detour, deviable, deviance, deviancy, deviant,
deviating, deviation, deviative, deviatory, devious, deviousness,
diffuse, digression, digressive, digressiveness, disconnected,
discontinuous, discursion, discursive, discursiveness, disjointed,
disorganized, distracted, distrait, distraught, divagation,
divagatory, divarication, divergence, diversion, dizzy, dogleg,
double, drift, drifting, eccentric, endless, episodic, errant,
errantry, erratic, excursion, excursive, excursus, exorbitation,
fast and loose, fickle, fitful, flickering, flighty, flitting,
floating, fluctuating, footloose, footloose and fancy-free,
frantic, freakish, fugitive, gadding, giddy, guttering, gypsy-like,
gypsyish, hairpin, halting, herky-jerky, heteroclite, hoboism,
illogical, immethodical, impenetrable, impetuous, impulsive,
inarticulate, incognizable, incoherent, incomprehensible,
inconsistent, inconstant, indecisive, indirect, indirection,
infirm, inscrutable, interminable, intermittent, intermitting,
irregular, irresolute, irresponsible, itineracy, itinerancy,
itinerant, jerky, jumbled, labyrinthine, landloping, lightheaded,
loose, lurching, maundering, mazy, meandering, mercurial,
migrational, migratory, moody, muddled, nomad, nomadic, nomadism,
nonuniform, numinous, obliquity, off, out-of-the-way,
past comprehension, patchy, peregrination, pererration,
peripatetic, periphrastic, planetary, prolix, ramble, ranging,
ranting, raving, restless, roam, roaming, rough, roundabout, rove,
roving, scatterbrained, scrambled, scrappy, serpentine, shapeless,
sheer, shift, shifting, shifting course, shifting path, shifty,
shuffling, skew, slant, snaky, snatchy, spasmatic, spasmic,
spasmodic, spastic, spineless, sporadic, spotty, sprawling,
spread out, spreading, staggering, straggling, straggly, stray,
straying, strolling, sweep, swerve, swerving, swinging, tack,
tortuous, traipsing, transient, transitory, transmigratory, turn,
turning, twist, twisting, unaccountable, uncertain, unconnected,
uncontrolled, undependable, undirected, undisciplined, unequal,
uneven, unfathomable, unfixed, unintelligible, unknowable,
unmethodical, unmetrical, unorganized, unplanned, unpredictable,
unregular, unreliable, unrestrained, unrhythmical, unsearchable,
unsettled, unstable, unstable as water, unstaid, unsteadfast,
unsteady, unsystematic, vacillating, vagabond, vagabondage,
vagabondia, vagabondism, vagrancy, vagrant, variable, variation,
veer, veering, verbose, vicissitudinary, vicissitudinous, volatile,
wandering, wanderlust, wanton, warp, wavering, wavery, wavy,
wayfaring, wayward, whimsical, wild, winding, wishy-washy,
wobbling, wobbly, wordy, yaw, zigzag