wanderlust
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
Merriam-Webster
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🗓️ 23 January 2025
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Summary
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 23, 2025 is:
wanderlust • \WAHN-der-lust\ • noun
Wanderlust refers to a strong desire to travel.
// During their final semester at college, the two friends were both filled with an insatiable wanderlust and began planning a journey to Patagonia together.
Examples:
"In a few weeks, Ortega explained in a quiet moment, the Red Desert herd would begin its annual pilgrimage toward summer range. ... Some were homebodies, wandering only a few dozen miles. Others, as Hall Sawyer had shown, would trek 150 miles. And one legendary doe, Deer 255, ditched her herdmates and pressed on—up to the Gros Ventre Range, along the shores of Jackson Lake, and across the Snake River, all the way to Idaho. Was this mere wanderlust or part of a broader survival strategy?" — Ben Goldfarb, Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, 2023
Did you know?
"For my part," writes Robert Louis Stevenson in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, "I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move..." Sounds like a case of wanderlust if we ever heard one. Those with wanderlust don't necessarily need to go anywhere in particular; they just don't care to stay in one spot. The etymology of wanderlust is a very simple one that you can probably figure out yourself. Wanderlust is a lust for wandering. The word comes from German, in which wandern means "to wander, hike, or stray" and Lust means "pleasure" or "desire."
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Word of the Day for January 23rd. |
| 0:08.0 | Today's word is wanderlust, spelled W-A-N-D-E-R-L-U-S-T. |
| 0:18.0 | Wanderlust is a noun. It refers to a strong desire to travel. Here's the word used in a |
| 0:24.4 | sentence from crossings, how road ecology is shaping the future of our planet by Ben Goldfarb. |
| 0:31.4 | In a few weeks, Ortega explained in a quiet moment the Desert Herd would begin its annual pilgrimage towards |
| 0:39.3 | summer range. Some were homebodies wandering only a few dozen miles. Others, as Hall-Soyer had shown, |
| 0:47.5 | would trek 150 miles, and one legendary doe, dear 255, ditched her herd mates and pressed on up to the Gros Ventre range, |
| 0:57.9 | along the shores of Jackson Lake, and across the Snake River all the way to Idaho. |
| 1:03.5 | Was this mere wanderlust or part of a broader survival strategy? |
| 1:09.3 | For my part, writes Robert Lewis Stevenson in Travels with a Donkey in the |
| 1:14.5 | Savan, I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travels sake. The great affair is to move. |
| 1:23.3 | Sounds like a case of wanderlust if we ever heard one. Those with wanderlust don't necessarily need to go anywhere in particular. |
| 1:31.3 | They just don't care to stay in one spot. |
| 1:34.3 | The etymology of the word wanderlust is a very simple one that you can probably figure out yourself. |
| 1:40.3 | Wanderlust is a lust for wandering. |
| 1:42.3 | The word comes from German in which van derr means to wander, hike, or stray, |
| 1:47.3 | and lust means pleasure or desire. |
| 1:50.5 | With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski. |
| 1:56.3 | Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups. |
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