RAMBLING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does rambling mean? 

• RAMBLING (adjective)
  The adjective RAMBLING has 3 senses:

1. spreading out in different directions or distributed irregularly

2. (of e.g. speech and writing) tending to depart from the main point or cover a wide range of subjects

3. of a path e.g.

  Familiarity information: RAMBLING used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RAMBLING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Spreading out in different directions or distributed irregularly

Synonyms:

rambling; sprawling; straggling; straggly

Context example:

straggly hair

Similar:

untidy (not neat and tidy)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(of e.g. speech and writing) tending to depart from the main point or cover a wide range of subjects

Synonyms:

digressive; discursive; excursive; rambling

Context example:

a rambling speech about this and that

Similar:

indirect (extended senses; not direct in manner or language or behavior or action)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Of a path e.g.

Synonyms:

meandering; rambling; wandering; winding

Context example:

a winding country road

Similar:

indirect (not direct in spatial dimension; not leading by a straight line or course to a destination)

 Context examples 

The house was larger than Hartfield, and totally unlike it, covering a good deal of ground, rambling and irregular, with many comfortable, and one or two handsome rooms.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient under this rambling and inconsequential narrative, but, on the contrary, he had listened with the greatest concentration of attention.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

We quitted London on the 27th of March and remained a few days at Windsor, rambling in its beautiful forest.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

While she remained, a bush of low rambling holly protected her, and they were moving on.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

‘I have said that the house is a rambling one.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

In her rambling and her idleness she might only be a caricature of herself; but in her silence and sadness she was the very reverse of all that she had been before.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

After a little rambling talk, the lawyer led up to the subject which so disagreeably preoccupied his mind.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He was always sitting at my little window, looking out into the churchyard; and I wondered whether his rambling thoughts ever went upon any of the fancies that used to occupy mine, on the rosy mornings when I peeped out of that same little window in my night-clothes, and saw the sheep quietly feeding in the light of the rising sun.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

We passed a considerable period at Oxford, rambling among its environs and endeavouring to identify every spot which might relate to the most animating epoch of English history.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)