perambulation

noun /pəˌɹæm.bjʊˈleɪ.ʃən/

1. A survey, a tour; an instance of walking around.

   countable, rare, uncountable

   The month of May had already commenced[…] when Henry proposed a pedestrian tour in the environs of Ingolstadt[…] We passed a fortnight in these perambulations: my health and spirits had long been restored, and they gained additional strength from the salubrious air I breathed, the natural incidents of our progress, and the conversation of my friend.

2. An English legal ceremony in which an official from a town or parish walks around it to delineate and record its boundaries.

   countable, uncountable

   Another forest not named in the perambulation is that of Horwich.

   1902, Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, published by the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society

3. The district thus inspected.

   countable, uncountable

Where it comes from

From Middle English perambulacioun, from Anglo-Norman and Latin. By surface analysis, perambulate + -ation, or, by surface analysis, per- + ambulate + -ion.

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry perambulation (CC BY-SA 4.0).

← peragrationpercontation →

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