From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Wandering \Wan"der*ing\, a. & n. from {Wander}, v.
{Wandering albatross} (Zo["o]l.), the great white albatross. See Illust. of {Albatross}.
{Wandering cell} (Physiol.), an animal cell which possesses the power of spontaneous movement, as one of the white corpuscles of the blood.
{Wandering Jew} (Bot.), any one of several creeping species of {Tradescantia}, which have alternate, pointed leaves, and a soft, herbaceous stem which roots freely at the joints. They are commonly cultivated in hanging baskets, window boxes, etc.
{Wandering kidney} (Med.), a morbid condition in which one kidney, or, rarely, both kidneys, can be moved in certain directions; -- called also {floating kidney}, {movable kidney}.
{Wandering liver} (Med.), a morbid condition of the liver, similar to wandering kidney.
{Wandering mouse} (Zo["o]l.), the whitefooted, or deer, mouse. See Illust. of {Mouse}.
{Wandering spider} (Zo["o]l.), any one of a tribe of spiders that wander about in search of their prey.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Wander \Wan"der\, verb (used without an object) [imp. & p. p. {Wandered}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Wandering}.] [OE. wandren, wandrien, AS. wandrian; akin to G. wandern to wander; fr. AS. windan to turn. See {Wind} to turn.]
1. To ramble here and there without any certain course or with no definite object in view; to range about; to stroll; to rove; as, to wander over the fields.
They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins. --Heb. xi. 37.
He wandereth abroad for bread. --Job xv. 23.
2. To go away; to depart; to stray off; to deviate; to go astray; as, a writer wanders from his subject.
When God caused me to wander from my father's house. --Gen. xx. 13.
O, let me not wander from thy commandments. --Ps. cxix. 10.
3. To be delirious; not to be under the guidance of reason; to rave; as, the mind wanders.
Syn: To roam; rove; range; stroll; gad; stray; straggly; err; swerve; deviate; depart.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
adjective
1: (of groups of people) tending to travel and change settlements frequently; "a restless mobile society"; "the nomadic habits of the Bedouins"; "believed the profession of a peregrine typist would have a happy future"; "wandering tribes" [syn: {mobile}, {nomadic}, {peregrine}, {roving}]
2: 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}]
3: having no fixed course; "an erratic comet"; "his life followed a wandering course"; "a planetary vagabond" [syn: {erratic}, {planetary}]
noun
1: travelling about without any clear destination; "she followed him in his wanderings and looked after him" [syn: {roving}, {vagabondage}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
341 Moby Thesaurus words for "wandering": Wanderjahr, aberrancy, aberrant, aberration, aberrative, abnormal, adrift, afebrile delirium, afloat, afoot and lighthearted, aimless, aimlessness, alternating, ambulant, amorphous, anomalistic, anomalous, babbling, bend, bereft of reason, bias, brainsick, brainstorm, branching off, broken, bumming, by the way, capricious, careening, casual, catchy, changeable, changeful, choppy, circuitous, circuitousness, circumforaneous, corner, crackbrained, cracked, crazed, crazy, crook, curve, daft, declination, delirious, deliriousness, delirium, deluded, demented, departing, departure, deprived of reason, deranged, desultoriness, desultory, detour, deviable, deviance, deviancy, deviant, deviating, deviation, deviative, deviatory, devious, deviousness, different, digression, digressive, digressiveness, disarticulated, disconnected, discontinuous, discursion, discursive, discursiveness, disjunct, disordered, disoriented, dispersed, disproportionate, distracted, distrait, distraught, divagation, divagatory, divarication, divergence, divergent, diversion, dizzy, dogleg, double, drift, drifting, eccentric, episodic, errant, errantry, erratic, excursion, excursive, excursus, exorbitation, fast and loose, fickle, fitful, flickering, flighty, flitting, floating, fluctuating, footloose, footloose and fancy-free, formless, frantic, freakish, frivolous, fugitive, gadding, giddy, gratuitous, guttering, gypsy-like, gypsyish, hairpin, hallucinated, halting, haphazard, herky-jerky, heteroclite, heteromorphic, hit-or-miss, hoboism, immethodical, impetuous, impulsive, inchoate, incoherence, incoherent, inconsistent, inconstant, indecisive, indirect, indirection, indiscriminate, infirm, insane, intermittent, intermitting, irrational, irregular, irresolute, irresponsible, itineracy, itinerancy, jerky, labyrinthine, landloping, lightheaded, lingual delirium, loco, loose, lunatic, lurching, mad, maddened, manic, maundering, mazed, mazy, meandering, meaningless, mental, mentally deficient, mercurial, meshuggah, migrational, migratory, misshapen, moody, moon-struck, nomad, nomadic, nomadism, non compos, non compos mentis, nonsymmetrical, nonsystematic, nonuniform, not all there, not right, obliquity, odd, of unsound mind, off, orderless, out-of-the-way, patchy, perambulatory, peregrination, pererration, planetary, planless, promiscuous, psycho, queer, ramble, rambling, random, ranging, ranting, raving, reasonless, restless, roam, roaming, rough, rove, roving, scatterbrained, scrappy, senseless, serpentine, shapeless, sheer, shift, shifting, shifting course, shifting path, shifty, shuffling, sick, skew, slant, snaky, snatchy, spasmatic, spasmic, spasmodic, spastic, spineless, sporadic, spotty, staggering, stark-mad, stark-staring mad, straggling, straggly, strange, stray, straying, strolling, subnormal, sweep, swerve, swerving, swinging, systemless, tack, tetched, touched, traipsing, transient, transitory, transmigratory, turn, turning, twist, twisting, unaccountable, unarranged, unbalanced, uncertain, unclassified, uncontrolled, undependable, undirected, undisciplined, unequal, uneven, unfixed, ungraded, unhinged, unjoined, unmethodical, unmetrical, unnatural, unordered, unorganized, unpredictable, unregular, unreliable, unrestrained, unrhythmical, unsane, unsettled, unsorted, unsound, unstable, unstable as water, unstaid, unsteadfast, unsteady, unsymmetrical, unsystematic, ununiform, vacillating, vagabond, vagabondage, vagabondia, vagabondism, vagrancy, vagrant, vague, variable, variation, veer, veering, vicissitudinary, vicissitudinous, volatile, wanderlust, wanton, warp, wavering, wavery, wavy, wayfaring, wayward, whimsical, wild, winding, wishy-washy, witless, wobbling, wobbly, yaw, zigzag
From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:
Wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness in consequence of their rebellious fears to enter the Promised Land (Num. 14:26-35). They wandered for forty years before they were permitted to cross the Jordan (Josh. 4:19; 5:6). The record of these wanderings is given in Num. 33:1-49. Many of the stations at which they camped cannot now be identified. Questions of an intricate nature have been discussed regarding the "Wanderings," but it is enough for us to take the sacred narrative as it stands, and rest assured that "He led them forth by the right way" (Ps. 107:1-7, 33-35). (See {WILDERNESS}.)
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