Definition of "meander" []

• To follow a winding and turning course: Streams tend to meander through level land. (verb-intransitive)
• To move aimlessly and idly without fixed direction: vagabonds meandering through life. See Synonyms at wander. (verb-intransitive)
• Circuitous windings or sinuosities, as of a stream or path. (noun)
• A circuitous journey or excursion; ramble. Often used in the plural. (noun)
• An ornamental pattern of winding or intertwining lines, used in art and architecture. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Near the west coast of Asia Minor, a river named Meander, the river from which the word meander is coined, spills into a dismal swampy plain in the country that today is Turkey."
• "The river was notable for its wandering course hence our modern term meander and in time it would silt up the entire bay between Priene and Miletus."
• "The word meander derives via Greek from the name of this river in the antiquity, Maiandros."