What is "meander"

Meander \Me*an"der\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Meandered; p. pr. & vb. n. Meandering.] To wind or turn in a course or passage; to be intricate.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran.
--Coleridge.

Meander \Me*an"der\, n. [L. Maeander, orig., a river in Phrygia, proverbial for its many windings, Gr. ?: cf. F. m['e]andre.]

1. A winding, crooked, or involved course; as, the meanders of the veins and arteries.
   --Sir M. Hale.

   While lingering rivers in meanders glide.
   --Sir R. Blackmore.

2. A tortuous or intricate movement.

3. (Arch.) Fretwork. See Fret.

Meander \Me*an"der\, v. t. To wind, turn, or twist; to make flexuous.
--Dryton.

1570s, "confusion, intricacies," from Latin meander "a winding course," from Greek Maiandros, name of a river in Caria noted for its winding course (the Greeks used the name figuratively for winding patterns). In reference to river courses, in English, from 1590s. Adjectival forms are meandrine (1846); meandrous (1650s).

"flow in a winding course" (of rivers), 1610s, from meander (n.). Of a person, "to wander aimlessly" (1831), originally of persons traveling on a river (1821), perhaps influenced by confusion with maunder [OED]. Related: Meandered; meandering.

n. 1 A winding, crooked, or involved course. 2 A tortuous or intricate movement. 3 fretwork. 4 (context math English) A self-avoiding closed curve which intersects a line a number of times. vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To wind or turn in a course or passage; to be intricate. 2 (context transitive English) To wind, turn, or twist; to make flexuous.

1. n. a curve in a stream

2. v. to move or cause to move in a sinuous, spiral, or circular course; "the river winds through the hills"; "the path meanders through the vineyards"; "sometimes, the gout wanders through the entire body" [syn: weave, wind, thread, wander]

A meander is a bend in a river.

Meander may also refer to:

In geography:

• Maeander River (or Meander River), historical name of the Büyük Menderes River in Turkey, the origin of the term
• Meander, Tasmania, Australia
• Meander River (Tasmania), Australia
• Meander Valley Council, Tasmania, Australia

In other fields:

• Meander (mythology), a river god in Greek mythology and patron of the Maeander River in Turkey
• Meander (art), a decorative border constructed from a continuous line, shaped into a repeated motif
• Meander (mathematics), a self-avoiding closed curve which intersects a line a number of times
• Meander (surveying), a type of surveying in which boundary lines attempt to follow some non-linear natural feature, such as a river or lake edge
• Meander (album), the first album of the band Carbon Leaf

• , the name of two ships of the Royal Navy

In mathematics, a meander or closed meander is a self-avoiding closed curve which intersects a line a number of times. Intuitively, a meander can be viewed as a road crossing a river through a number of bridges.

Meander is Carbon Leaf's first album. It was released in 1995 by the band's own label, Constant Ivy Records.

Meander, Maeander, Mæander, or Maiandros is a river god in Greek mythology, patron deity of the Meander river (modern Büyük Menderes River) in Caria, southern Asia Minor (modern Turkey). He is one of the sons of Oceanus and Tethys, and is the father of Cyanee, Samia and Kalamos.

A meander or meandros is a decorative border constructed from a continuous line, shaped into a repeated motif. Such a design is also called the Greek fret or Greek key design, although these are modern designations. On the one hand, the name "meander" recalls the twisting and turning path of the Maeander River in Asia Minor, and on the other hand, as Karl Kerenyi pointed out, "the meander is the figure of a labyrinth in linear form". Among some Italians, these patterns are known as Greek Lines. Usually the term is used for motifs with straight lines and right angles; the many versions with rounded shapes are called running scrolls.

Meanders are common decorative elements in Greek and Roman art. In ancient Greece they appear in many architectural friezes, and in bands on the pottery of ancient Greece from the Geometric Period onwards. The design is common to the present-day in classicizing architecture. The meander is a fundamental design motif in regions far from a Hellenic orbit: labyrinthine meanders ("thunder" pattern) appear in bands and as infill on Shang bronzes, and many traditional buildings in and around China still bear geometric designs almost identical to meanders.

They were among the most important symbols in ancient Greece; and perhaps symbolized infinity and unity; many ancient Greek temples incorporated the sign of the meander. Greek vases, especially during their Geometric Period, were probably the main reason for the widespread use of meanders; alternatively, very ocean-like patterns of waves also appeared in the same format as meanders, which can also be thought of as the guilloche pattern. The shield of Philip II of Macedon, conserved in the museum of Vergina, is decorated with multiple symbols of the meander. Meanders are also prevalent on the pavement mosaics found in Roman villas throughout the Roman empire. A good example is at the Chedworth Roman Villa in England, leading many historians to believe that the pattern was part of the original inspiration for the Latin "G" character.

Meanders and their generalizations are used with increasing frequency in various domains of contemporary art. The painter Yang Liu, for example, has incorporated smooth versions of the traditional Greek Key (also called Sona drawing, Sand drawing, and Kolam) in many of her paintings. The meander is also the symbol used by many Greek nationalist groups such as the Golden Dawn.

A meander, in general, is a bend in a sinuous watercourse or river. A meander forms when moving water in a stream erodes the outer banks and widens its valley, and the inner part of the river has less energy and deposits silt. A stream of any volume may assume a meandering course, alternately eroding sediments from the outside of a bend and depositing them on the inside. The result is a snaking pattern as the stream meanders back and forth across its down-valley axis. When a meander gets cut off from the main stream, an oxbow lake forms. Over time meanders migrate downstream, sometimes in such a short time as to create civil engineering problems for local municipalities attempting to maintain stable roads and bridges.

There is not yet full consistency or standardization of scientific terminology used to describe watercourses. A variety of symbols and schemes exist. Parameters based on mathematical formulae or numerical data vary as well, depending on the database used by the theorist. Unless otherwise defined in a specific scheme "meandering" and "sinuosity" here are synonymous and mean any repetitious pattern of bends, or waveforms. In some schemes, "meandering" applies only to rivers with exaggerated circular loops or secondary meanders; that is, meanders on meanders.

Sinuosity is one of the channel types that a stream may assume over all or part of its course. All streams are sinuous at some time in their geologic history over some part of their length.