maunder

present singular third person maunders · participle present maundering · participle past maundered · past maundered

1. To speak in a disorganized or desultory manner; to babble or prattle.

   He was ever maundering by the how that he met a party of scarlet devils.

   1826, [Walter Scott], Woodstock; Or, The Cavalier. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, →OCLC

   4 more examples

   "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 […]"

   1834, Maria Edgeworth, Helen: v. 3, ch. V

   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.

   1871, Henry James, “ch. IV”, in A Passionate Pilgrim

   What are you maundering about? He's going out from here a free man and whole—he's not going to die.

   1889, Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, ch. XVII

   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.

   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

   Synonyms: babble, prattle, ramble

2. To wander or walk aimlessly.

   [Deacon Mushrat to Pogo:] The Machiavellian barratry of a pettifogging public has maundered into do-nothingism.

   1959 April 24, Walt Kelly, Pogo, comic strip, →ISBN, page 35

   Synonyms: ramble, wander

3. intransitiveobsoleteTo beg; to whine like a beggar.

plural maunders

1. obsoleteA beggar.
2. EnglishMiddlebasket maker

1. A surname.