Wander

How to spell wander

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce wander

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does wander mean?

1. verbTo move about or travel from place to place without a fixed route or clear purpose.

Wander in a sentence

• The tourists liked to wander through the old town with no particular plan.

• After lunch she would wander along the riverbank to clear her head.

Where does wander come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English wandrian, meaning 'to move about without a fixed course, to roam', and it belongs to a family of Germanic words built on the same root that gave us 'wind' (as in winding a path) and 'wend'. The frequentative ending, the same kind of repeated-action suffix you find in 'flutter' and 'glimmer', captured the sense of moving here and there over and over rather than travelling straight to a goal. Related forms appear across the Germanic languages, such as the German wandern, 'to hike or ramble', which English speakers later borrowed back in the compound 'wanderlust'. The spelling has stayed remarkably stable for centuries, and the main trap is simply the unstressed first vowel, which sounds like the 'o' in its near-twin 'wonder' yet is written with an 'a'. Keeping the 'a' of wander distinct from the 'o' of wonder is the chief thing a writer has to remember.

How the word is built

• wand- (Germanic root related to 'wind/turn')
• -er (frequentative verb suffix indicating repeated action)