ramble 1 of 5

Definition of ramblenext

ramble

2 of 5

verb (1)

1
as in to rattle
to talk at length without sticking to a topic or getting to a point the teenagers sat around the pizza parlor, rambling on about dating, homework, movies, and the local football team

Synonyms & Similar Words

2
as in to wander
to move about from place to place aimlessly by tirelessly rambling around San Francisco for a week we probably saw more of it than many residents ever have

Synonyms & Similar Words

3
as in to stroll
to travel by foot for exercise or pleasure we're planning to ramble all over the highland moors when we're in Dartmoor

Synonyms & Similar Words

rambling

3 of 5

adjective

rambling

4 of 5

noun (2)

rambling

5 of 5

verb (2)

present participle of ramble

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of ramble
Noun
From the Mescal Trailhead, the trail rambles through brushy high-desert scrub. Roger Naylor, AZCentral.com, 8 Nov. 2025 My morning rambles cross mossy forest floors strewn with spring ephemerals. Rowan Jacobsen, Harpers Magazine, 24 Oct. 2025
Verb
His speech was unhinged, often not founded in fact, and rambled badly. Dp Opinion, Denver Post, 30 Sep. 2025 On the first play of the final period, Bruce rambled in for a four-yard TD for the Eagles. Mike Waters, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 27 Sep. 2025
Adjective
Trump said in a rambling address. Philip Elliott, Time, 20 Jan. 2026 Asian Journey finds a fine balance between juicy yet good-natured conflict between participants and an amiable rambling quality that gives the travelog structure a bit of unpredictability. Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 17 Jan. 2026
Verb
What on Earth was Gabriel rambling on about before, anyway? Jessica Wang, Entertainment Weekly, 7 Sep. 2025 Roger Naylor shares 10 favorite Arizona destinations from his 50 years of rambling here. Roger Naylor, AZCentral.com, 29 Aug. 2025 See All Example Sentences for ramble
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ramble
Adjective
  • Like a lot of messy divorces, this started with a wandering eye, a lover scorned and boils down to the money.
    Dana O’Neil, CNN Money, 21 Jan. 2026
  • After spending a few days, a wandering light leads them to the next world.
    Leo Barraclough, Variety, 15 Jan. 2026
Adjective
  • Sophia wasn’t particularly talkative that evening.
    Dan Turello, New Yorker, 10 Jan. 2026
  • Lopez describes her daughter as an energetic, talkative child who speaks both English and Spanish.
    Leondra Head, CBS News, 8 Jan. 2026
Adjective
  • In these cases, plaintiffs’ attorneys direct clients to adjacent doctors and facilities to generate false or exaggerated diagnoses for the sole purpose of inflating potential settlements and jury verdicts.
    Elizabeth Heck, New York Daily News, 4 Feb. 2026
  • That belief, when a player’s career is winding down, sometimes leads to an exaggerated sense of self, conflicting with others’ perceptions.
    Ken Rosenthal, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2026
Adjective
  • Their clean collisions would allow more precise measurements of scattering amplitudes, making the FCC ultrasensitive to indirect signs of new physics.
    Quanta Magazine, Quanta Magazine, 26 Jan. 2026
  • Unemployment, in an indirect way, is another.
    Matt Richardson, CBS News, 26 Jan. 2026
Adjective
  • With Payton and Nix, in particular, part of the rationale was to get some of Payton’s most wordy calls on the band so the coach could give short-hand to Nix, creating a couple of extra seconds for the quarterback to spit out a call that might be15 or 20 words long.
    Parker Gabriel, Denver Post, 7 Jan. 2026
  • Clearly, this was a bit wordy, so this became ‘parking the bus’, which initially found popularity as an insult for unambitious football, then later was used in a more neutral manner to mean deep defending.
    Michael Cox, New York Times, 14 Dec. 2025
Adjective
  • In 1949, a young American artist named Ray Johnson left Black Mountain College near Asheville, N.C., moved to New York City and began to explore his prolix talents, both visual and verbal.
    Roberta Smith, New York Times, 30 May 2024
  • His answer is this book: a laudably sincere, exasperatingly prolix and occasionally affecting rumination on the state of Egypt—its society, culture, history and politics—pegged to the maddening bureaucracy of the archive.
    Kapil Komireddi, WSJ, 12 Mar. 2023
Adjective
  • Instead, Reeves became Estragon, the more simplistic and long-suffering of the duo, while Winter tackled Vladimir, the more commanding and verbose character.
    Brent Lang, Variety, 1 Oct. 2025
  • Director Richard Linklater is fond of a verbose protagonist; Hawke and Julie Delpy gabbed through three films’ worth of Before movies, after all.
    Joe Reid, Vulture, 16 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • Trump, of course, was rude, untruthful, and excessively, if not quite so egregiously, long-winded in his first term, too.
    Susan B. Glasser, New Yorker, 22 Jan. 2026
  • As part of a long-winded court case related to conditions on Rikers, Manhattan Federal Judge Laura Swain has ordered that a receiver — who would oversee the DOC commissioner — should take over control of the notoriously dangerous jail complex.
    Josephine Stratman, New York Daily News, 6 Jan. 2026

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Ramble.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ramble. Accessed 8 Feb. 2026.

More from Merriam-Webster on ramble

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!