Weekly Word is a weekly post intended to illustrate the meaning and use of a single word. The chosen word will begin with a different letter of the alphabet each week, as Louise (my daughter) and I work our way through the alphabet.
Louise posts on her website:
This week’s word begins with the letter M:
Part of Speech:
Verb (intransitive)
Meaning:
1. Talk in a rambling, indistinct, incoherent or disconnected manner
2. Move or act in a dreamy or idle manner; wander slowly and aimlessly
3. Grumble (chiefly British to express dissatisfaction, pain, or resentment usually tiresomely)
Pronunciation:
Morn-der (UK)
maun·der (US)
Audio Link:
Related Forms:
Maunders verb (plural) and 3rd person partciple
Maundering (adj)
Maundered (past participle)
Maundering (adj)
Maunderingly
Maunderer (n)
Synonyms:
ramble prattle prate blather blether blither drivel rattle chatter jabber gabble babble slabber gab yak yabber yatter rabbit witter waffle natter chunter twaddle clack
Antonyms:
crow delight
Word Origin:
17th century (1622) in the meaning defined at Sense 1, perhaps from the obsolete maunder, meaning to beg – from the Latin mendīcāre.
Use the Word in a Sentence:
1. Miss Stevens carried the requested files into the office, as usual maundering about her aching back.
2. If this man continued to maunder on for much longer, Charlie would have no other option than to tell him to his face that he bored the socks off people.
3. Jane maundered across country fields for most of the day, trying to clear her mind of the humdrum that had become her everyday life.
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If you would like to join us in doing this weekly post, both Louise and I would be happy to see you. You can pick your own word and illustrate its use in any way you choose (even a short story) or use your chosen word to follow a similar pattern to our posts.
Millie Thom 
Aha, I’ve learned something new again! Thank you Millie! I did what I always do — pause to try to define the word myself before scrolling down — and at first I was crestfallen. Wrong! Oh no! But it turns out that I was one-third correct, which is better than nothing. I only know of the third meaning, like meandering. Now I wonder if I’ve ever read the word where people meant it as grumbling or blathering and I completely misunderstood!
Your comments always keep me on my toes, Joy. It’s good to know you like to define the word yourself before reading my definitions and so on. I think that’s great and it makes these posts worth doing. However, you’ve now set me the task of finding unusual words – which is also fine because there are a lot of them lurking around out there. But I also hope to find words that are used nowadays, even if only rarely. Maunder is quite an old-fashioned word, probably more often used in Britain as in Sense 1 than anything else – and probably more likely to have been used pre-WW2 than in recent years.
I’ll see what I can find for N next week.
Maunder was definitely a stretch for me, and I seem to know a lot of old-fashioned words — or at least, words that show up in older books and historical fiction.
I was maundering over many blogs and stumbled upon this. Can’t really maunder since it was a good discovery. Did I make any sense? Did I learn well?! 😉
Thank you kindly for maundering onto my post Trablogger! I’m glad you didn’t need to maunder for long. Your interpretation of the word is spot on and you would doubtless have been one of my A star students. Well done! 😀
Thank you teacher!! 😀
“If this man continued to maunder on for much longer, Charlie would have no other option than to tell him to his face that he bored the socks off people.” LOL! Great word…thanks, Millie!
Thank you so much, Jill. I like to have a bit of fun with some of my sentences. It brightens up my post. 😀