maunder
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From earlier maund (“to beg”).
Pronunciation
[edit]Verb
[edit]maunder (third-person singular simple present maunders, present participle maundering, simple past and past participle maundered)
- To speak in a disorganized or desultory manner; to babble or prattle.
- 1826, [Walter Scott], Woodstock; Or, The Cavalier. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, →OCLC:
- He was ever maundering by the how that he met a party of scarlet devils.
- 1834, Maria Edgeworth, Helen: v. 3, ch. V:
- "Not so fast, Lady Cecilia; not yet;" and now Louisa went on with a medical maundering. "As to low spirits, my dear Cecilia, I must say I agree with Sir Sib Pennyfeather, who tells me it is not mere common low spirits […] "
- 1871, Henry James, “ch. IV”, in A Passionate Pilgrim:
- On the following day my friend's exhaustion had become so great that I began to fear his intelligence altogether broken up. But toward evening he briefly rallied, to maunder about many things, confounding in a sinister jumble the memories of the past weeks and those of bygone years.
- 1889, Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, ch. XVII:
- What are you maundering about? He's going out from here a free man and whole—he's not going to die.
- 2014 November 14, Blake Bailey, “'Tennessee Williams,' by John Lahr [print version: Theatrical victory of art over life, International New York Times, 18 November 2014, p. 13]”, in The New York Times[1]:
- Whether Edwina [mother of Tennessee Williams] had sufficient self-awareness to recognize her own maundering about (say) "seventeen! – gentleman callers!" is doubtful, but she was indeed Amanda [Wingfield, character in Williams' play The Glass Menagerie] in the flesh: a doughty chatterbox from Ohio who adopted the manner of a Southern belle and eschewed both drink and sex to the greatest extent possible.
- To wander or walk aimlessly.
- 1959 April 24, Walt Kelly, Pogo, comic strip, →ISBN, page 35:
- [Deacon Mushrat to Pogo:] The Machiavellian barratry of a pettifogging public has maundered into do-nothingism.
- (intransitive, obsolete) To beg; to whine like a beggar.
Synonyms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]speak in a disorganized manner
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walk aimlessly
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References
[edit]- Samuel Johnson (1827) A Dictionary of the English Language: “2. To wander about in a thoughtful manner; to talk confusedly; [perhaps from the Gael. mandagh, a stutterer.] A northern word. It is written both maunder and mander.”
Noun
[edit]maunder (plural maunders)