Prowl

There is nothing aimless about a big cat on the prowl.

Imminent lethal intent. Focused. Targeted. Stealthy.

Although I understand completely why the various ways we use prowl made the list of roam synonyms, the word’s essential meaning makes it an antonym to every synonym since linger.

Prowl is a word with purpose, weapons locked. A black panther in the darkness, preparing to pounce.

Roam

There’s a sense of aimlessness to meander. It’s possible to meander an infinitely long time in a fairly confined space, get nowhere at all, and arrive back exactly where you started. Meander connotes a sort of feckless purposelessness which also infects most of its synonyms. But there is one…

Maybe roam offers a better indication of how I travel, how I move through life and existence. The point of roaming is to leave the boundaries of a confined space, whether geographical, cultural, emotional, philosophical, spiritual or any other kind of confinement we care to consider.