FromMiddle Englishwanderere,wandrere,wanderare, equivalent towander +‎-er. Cognate withScotswanderer,wandirer(“wanderer”),Dutchwandelaar(“walker, hiker”),GermanWanderer(“wanderer”),Danishvandrer(“wanderer”),Swedishvandrare(“wanderer”),Norwegianvandrer(“wanderer”).

• (General American)IPA^(key):/ˈwɑndəɹɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation)IPA^(key):/ˈwɒndəɹə/

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wanderer (pluralwanderers)

1. One whowanders, who travels aimlessly.
   • 1892,James Yoxall, chapter 5, inThe Lonely Pyramid:

     The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom.[…]Roaring, leaping, pouncing, the tempest raged about thewanderers, drowning and blotting out their forms with sandy spume.

   • 1898, Leon H. Vincent,The Bibliotaph And Other People:

     The bibliotaph buries books; not literally, but sometimes with as much effect as if he had put his books underground. There are several varieties of him. The dog-in-the-manger bibliotaph is the worst; he uses his books but little himself, and allows others to use them not at all. On the other hand, a man may be a bibliotaph simply from inability to get at his books. He may be homeless, a bachelor, a denizen of boarding-houses, awanderer upon the face of the earth.

   • 1968,Christopher Hodder-Williams, “Hands”, inFistful of Digits, London:Coronet Books, published1972,→ISBN,page125:

     She was, in fact, constitutionally impervious to statistics and preferred to study the be-headphoned group of fifteen or so lethargicwanderers who were taking even less notice of the remorseless squawkings than she was.

2. Any of various far-migratingnymphalid butterflies of the genusDanaus.
3. (colloquial) Thewandering albatross,Diomedea exulans.

• SeeThesaurus:vagabond

• nerdwear,warrened,rewarned