perambulate

present singular third person perambulates · participle present perambulating · participle past perambulated · past perambulated

1. intransitiveTo walk around, roam, or stroll.

   Near-synonym: ambulate (sometimes synonymous)

   2 more examples

   Take, for instance, one of the most wretched classes of the community, the poor fellows who perambulate the streets as Sandwich Men. These are farmed out by certain firms.

   1890, William Booth, “The regimentation of the unemployed”, in In Darkest England and the Way Out

   They dragged themselves from the swamp singly, and in twos and threes, more dead than alive, mere perambulating skeletons, until at last there were thirty of us.

   1906, Jack London, chapter XVIII, in Before Adam

   Synonyms: ambulate

2. transitiveTo inspect (an area) on foot.

   The officials, in their gowns of grey, with a white St. Andrew’s cross on back and breast, and a white cloth carried before them on a staff, perambulated the city, adding the terror of man’s justice to the fear of God’s visitation.

   1903, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter IV, in Edinburgh