Word of the Day

: January 27, 2021

itinerant

play
adjective eye-TIN-uh-runt

What It Means

: traveling from place to place; especially : covering a circuit

itinerant in Context

"Born on a small farm near Yuma, Arizona, Cesar Chavez entered the whirlpool of itinerant labor as a child after his family lost possession of their ranch. They moved wherever the harvest took them." — Ilan Stavans, Cesar Chavez: A Photographic Essay, 2009

"At some point Coleman became a Methodist, a denomination whose teachings were being spread by Jesse Lee and other itinerant preachers." — The Ridgefield (Connecticut) Press, 3 Dec. 2020


Did You Know?

In Latin, iter means "way" or "journey." That root was the parent of the Late Latin verb itinerari, meaning "to journey." It was that verb which ultimately gave rise to the English word for traveling types: itinerant. The linguistic grandparent, iter, also contributed to the development of other English words, including itinerary ("the route of a journey" and "the plan made for a journey") and errant ("traveling or given to traveling," as in knight-errant).



Test Your Vocabulary

Fill in the blanks to complete a word for a person who lives in seclusion: a _ _ h _ _ i _ e.

VIEW THE ANSWER

Podcast


More Words of the Day

Love words? Need even more definitions?

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