wanderer (wonderer)

[ And here to every thirsty wanderer , By sly enticement gives his baneful cup. Milton, Comus, 1. 524. 2. pl. In Arachnid a, specifically, the wandering as distinguished from the sedentary spiders; the vagabonds. See Vagabundæ. wandering (won'der-ing), p. a. Roving; roaming; pursuing no fixed course, plan, or object; unsettled: as, a wandering spirit; wandering habits; a wandering minstrel. Pray ye, do not trouble him; You see he's weak, and has a wandering fancy. Fletcher, Spanish Curate, iv. 5. If a man's wits be wandering , let him study the mathematics, for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. Bacon, Studies. Wandering absce , a chronic absce which burrows through the ti ues, usually in obedience to the law of gravity, and appears on the surface at some distance from its point of origin. - Wandering cells, the leucocytes; cells resembling, and probably identical with, the white bell a and prob an tich the ve els. Wandering Jew. (a) A legendary character who, according to one version (that of Matthew Paris, dating from the thirteenth century), was a servant of Pilate, by name Cart a phil us, and gave Christ a blow when he was led out of the palace to execution. Ac cording to a later version he was a cobbler named Ahas uerus, who refused Christ permi ion to sit down and rest when he pa ed his house on the way to Golgotha. Both legends agree in the sentence pronounced by Christ the offender, "Thou shalt wander on the earth till I return." A prey to remorse, he has since wandered from land to land without being able to find a grave. The story has been turned to account by many poets and novelists. (b) A plant-name: (1) The beefsteak or strawberry geranium, Saxifraga sar mentos a; locally, the Kenilworth ivy, Linaria Cymbal aria. [Great Britain.] (2) One of two or three house-plants, as Zebrina pendula ( Trades cantia zebrina ), which are planted in baskets or ve els of water, whence they spread in a straggling fashion. Z. pendula has lance-ovate or oblong leaves which are crimson beneath and green or purplish above, with two broad silvery stripes. Another sort has bright green leaves.Wandering shearwater, the greater shearwater, Puffi nus major, a bird of the family Procellariidæ. See cut under hagden. - Wandering spiders. See wanderer, 2. Wandering tattler, Heteros cel us in can us, a bird of the snipe family ( Scolopacidæ ), widely distributed on the coasts and islands of the Pacific. See cut under tattler. Wandering tumor, one of the solid abdominal viscera which has become movable through relaxation of its attachments, as a floating kidney.