''perambulate'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260313192153-00-⌔

perambulate - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

perambulate (third-person singular simple present perambulates, present participle perambulating, simple past and past participle perambulated)

• (intransitive) To walk around, roam, or stroll.
  • ✤ Near-synonym: ambulate (sometimes synonymous)
  • ✤ 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.¹
  • ✤ 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.²
• (transitive) To 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.³

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin perambulō, perambulātus. Equivalent to per- +‎ ambulate.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /pəɹˈæmbjʊˌleɪt/, /pəɹˈæmbjəˌleɪt/
• Audio (UK): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

1. 1890, William Booth, “The regimentation of the unemployed”, in In Darkest England and the Way Out ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

2. 1906, Jack London, chapter XVIII, in Before Adam ‎${}^{[2]}$: ↩

3. 1903, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter IV, in Edinburgh ‎${}^{[3]}$: ↩