Monday, December 23, 2013

ambulate

ambulate \AM-byuh-leyt\, verb:

to walk about or move from place to place.

The woman walked slowly, with a halting gait, as if she'd been forced to ambulate with a pair of swim fins for shoes.
-- Sue Grafton, "E" is for Evidence, 1988
It must be admitted that we who ambulate in pants, lie to each other in business and bunco our neighbors, in order to secure the lithographs of commerce, so that we can furnish the gentle herd with the means to live, are not perfect.
-- Charles Summers, The Nomads, 1903

Ambulate comes from the Latin ambulāre meaning "to walk." It entered English in the 1600s.

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