Also wandring, wandrynge, etc. [f. WANDER v. + -ING1.] The action of the verb in various senses.
1. Travelling from place to place or from country to country without settled route or destination; roaming. Often in plural, sometimes denoting a protracted period of devious journeying.
1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. Prol. 7. I was weori of wandringe and wente me to reste Vndur a brod banke bi a Bourne syde.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 515/1. Wanderynge, vagacio.
1552. Huloet, Wandrynge, discursus.
1664. Jer. Taylor, Dissuas. Popery, i. § 3. 21. The labors of pilgrimages, superstitious and useless wandrings from place to place.
1697. Dryden, Æneis, I. 1061. The fatal Issue of so long a War, Your Flight, your Wand’rings, and your Woes declare.
1705. Stanhope, Paraphr., I. 24. The Night here will answer to the present Life, a state of Wandring and Weakness.
1797. Ht. Lee, Canterb. T., Poet’s T., I. 119. [The letter] had followed him in his wanderings, and reached him at last by mere accident.
1876. Miss Braddon, J. Haggard’s Dau., I. i. 8. Joshua … settled down after his wanderings in his native town.
b. Of inanimate things: Devious movement from place to place.
1827. Lytton, Falkland, I. 61. The air of heaven [is] not purer in its wanderings.
1867. Tennyson, Holy Grail, 664. Their wise men Were strong in that old magic which can trace The wandering of the stars.
1913. J. W. Jenkinson, Vertebrate Embryol., i. 11. Amongst movements of single cells are comprised:… the wanderings of the germ-cells in early stages.
c. Of the eyes: Irregular turning this way and that.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy, xx. The idle indicated their inattention by the wandering of their eyes.
1859. Habits of Gd. Society, vii. 251. You should not show that you think so … by the toss of your head or the wandering of your eyes.
1869. Tanner, Clin. Med. (ed. 2), 12. Condition of Nervous System…. Wandering of eyes, state of pupils, squinting.
d. Of the mind, thoughts, desires, etc.: Aimless passing from object to object.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 27793. Vnnait talckhing, vnstedfastnes, o will wandring.
1450–1530. Myrr. our Ladye, I. xvi. 43. Beholdynge therwyth what pareyl he stondeth in yf he contynew rechelessly in suche wandryng of mynde vnto his deth.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 161. To call in our mynde from vagacyon or wandryng & to apply vs to our duty reuerently.
1611. Bible, Eccl. vi. 9. Better is the sight of the eyes, then the wandering of the desire.
1712. Budgell, Spect., No. 425, ¶ 1. A Poem of Milton’s, which he entitles Il Penseroso, the Ideas of which were exquisitely suited to my present Wanderings of Thought.
1746. Francis, trans. Horace, Epist., I. i. 90, note. It might well seem, that this Inconsistency, this wandering of Spirit, might be the peculiar Folly of the Rich.
2. Deviation from the right or intended path or direction, straying, aberration.
1711. J. Greenwood, Eng. Gram., 80. Beside denotes erring, or Wandring (‘as he shoots beside the mark’).
1818. Byron, Juan, I. 7. The regularity of my design Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning.
1844. Mrs. Browning, Lost Bower, l. The next morning, all had vanished, or my wandering missed the place.
3. Disordered action of the mind due to illness or nervous exhaustion; rambling, delirium; in plural, delirious fancies, esp. as expressed in speech; incoherent ramblings.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., iii. The theatre and the public-house were the chief themes of the wretched man’s wanderings.
1843. R. J. Graves, Syst. Clin. Med., xii. 130. Here there was a very threatening array of symptoms … illusions of the sense of hearing, a fiery eye, and incessant mental wandering.
a. 1859. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xxiii. V. 104. Every third day … his dejection, his fits of wandering seemed to indicate the approach of dissolution.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., IV. 398. Such are many degrees of transient mental failure, to which such terms as ‘wandering’ and ‘rambling’ are applied.
4. Gerundially in to go, or to be, a-wandering. Now rare or arch.
1700. Locke, Hum. Und., II. xxxiii. § 6 (ed. 4), 222. Though his unattentive Thoughts be elsewhere a wandering.
1898. Besant, Orange Girl, II. xxiii. His wits gone a-wandering!
