wander

«wander» in Mova's school dictionary: To walk around slowly without a clear plan or without… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (wander, wanders, wandered, wandering); noun (a wander — informal, UK)

meaning for a pupil

1) To walk around slowly without a clear plan or without going anywhere in particular. tree →

2) To go away from the place where you should be, often without meaning to (Don't wander off). tree →

3) (of the mind or eyes) To stop paying attention and think or look at other things (My mind wandered in the lesson). tree →

4) A wander: a slow, relaxed walk. tree →

sense in the lessons

In safety lessons, «don't wander off» is a key rule on trips, at the beach, in malls, crowds and forests — stay with your group; if you get lost, stay where you are and ask a safe adult. In school, a wandering mind means losing concentration. In stories, characters wander into forests and adventures. Phrases: wander off, wander around, wander away, mind wanders, wanderer.

examples

• We wandered around the market looking at the stalls. tree →
• Don't wander off at the fair — stay with me. tree →
• The little lamb wandered away from the flock. tree →
• My mind started to wander during the long film. tree →
• If you wander from the path, you might get lost. tree →
• Let's go for a wander by the river. tree →
• The puppy wandered into the neighbour's garden. tree →
• We wandered silently homeward across the mountains. tree →

note

Spelling trap: «wander» (walk around without a plan, sounds like «WON-der») vs «wonder» (to ask yourself, to be amazed, sounds like «WUN-der»). Past: wandered.

In the corpora

• In autumn many house spiders run across the floor because the males are wandering in search of females.
• About 700 years ago a wandering people, the Aztecs or Mexica, settled in the Valley of Mexico.
• The Israelites wandered forty years in the wilderness before reaching the Promised Land, and they often grumbled.
• And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field.
• Lo, then would I wander far off, I would lodge in the wilderness.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «wander» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.