circumforaneous

comparative more circumforaneous · superlative most circumforaneous

1. Wandering from place to place or market to market.

   Gyrovagues: Monks who were accustomed to wander from place to place. In modern times, perhaps, any of the various circumforaneous proselytizers who go from door to door—Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, et al.

   1992, Peter Bowler, Ron Bell, The superior person's second book of weird and wondrous words, page 38

   1 more example

   It is perfect for a thirteen-year-old child of NoVA when in the throes of another fit of aimlessness and maddening, ravenous boredom in which only the entering of a mall, the circumforaneous wandering amid others of your kind, or the buying of a CD (usually more like the stealing of a CD) can cure the disease.

   2008, James Boice, NoVA: a novel, page 83

2. broadlyIndirect, roundabout, or unnecessarily complex.

   The reason that this has not been the subject of extended commentary in science studies was that the path along which thermodynamics wrought its magic was unprecedentedly indirect and circumforaneous:[…]

   2002, Philip Mirowski, Machine dreams: economics becomes a cyborg science, page 43