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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To walk slowly or leisurely; stroll.
  2. v. To move along at an easy gait by using both legs on one side alternately with both on the other. Used of a horse.
  3. n. An unhurried or leisurely walk.
  4. n. An easy gait, especially that of a horse.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To move with the peculiar pace of a horse when it first lifts the two legs on one side, and then the two on the other; hence, to move easily and gently, without hard shocks.
  2. To ride an ambling horse; ride at an easy pace.
  3. Figuratively, to move affectedly.
  4. n. A peculiar gait of a horse or like animal, in which both legs on one side are moved at the same time; hence, easy motion; gentle pace. Also called pace (which see).

Wiktionary

  1. n. An unhurried leisurely walk or stroll.
  2. n. An easy gait, especially that of a horse (as above).
  3. v. To stroll or walk slowly and leisurely.
  4. v. Of a horse: to move along by using both legs on one side, and then the other.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To go at the easy gait called an amble; -- applied to the horse or to its rider.
  2. v. To move somewhat like an ambling horse; to go easily or without hard shocks.
  3. n. A peculiar gait of a horse, in which both legs on the same side are moved at the same time, alternating with the legs on the other side.
  4. n. A movement like the amble of a horse.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a leisurely walk (usually in some public place)
  2. v. walk leisurely

Etymologies

  1. Middle English amblen, from Old French ambler, from Latin ambulāre, to walk.

Examples

  • “So he and his wife mounted their beasts and Abd al-Kaddus whistled, when, behold, a mighty big elephant trotted up with fore hand and feet on amble from the heart of the desert and he took it and mounted it.”

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night

  • “In our flight over the de - fert I laboured under one great and pecu - liar difadvantage, I mean my inability to keep the camel to his proper pace; for thofe who are ufed to travel on this ani - mal feldom go at a trot, but almoft always at a kind of amble, which is equally expe - ditious, and much lefs fevere to the rider.”

    Internet Archive: Travels round the world, in the years 1767, 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771

  • “The "amble" to Country Kitchen after Formal was cold, but fun.”

    ana-ng Diary Entry

  • “Countess Bonina, with whom he had danced the first half of the waltz, and, scanning his kingdom — that is to say, a few couples who had started dancing — he caught sight of Kitty, entering, and flew up to her with that peculiar, easy amble which is confined to directors of balls.”

    Anna Karenina

  • “He had only just left the Countess Banin, with whom he had danced the first half of the waltz, and scanning his kingdom—that is to say, a few couples who had started dancing—he caught sight of Kitty, entering, and flew up to her with that peculiar, easy amble which is confined to directors of balls.”

    Chapter XXII. Part I

  • “In the hands, moreover, of the poets of this particular time, whether they were printed at length or cut up into eights and sixes, they had an almost irresistible tendency to degenerate into a kind of lolloping amble which is inexpressibly monotonous.”

    A History of Elizabethan Literature

  • “But this quiet pace did not last, for, the road becoming level, the pony took to a kind of amble which seemed its natural pace, and was soon urged from that into a gallop by its driver.”

    A Pair of Clogs

  • “Countess Bonina, with whom he had danced the first half of the waltz, and, scanning his kingdom -- that is to say, a few couples who had started dancing -- he caught sight of Kitty, entering, and flew up to her with that peculiar, easy amble which is confined to directors of balls.”

    Anna Karenina

  • “Their pace is a kind of amble, and they are able to sustain a journey of about twenty leagues a day.”

    Delineations of the Ox Tribe The Natural History of Bulls, Bisons, and Buffaloes. Exhibiting all the Known Species and the More Remarkable Varieties of the Genus Bos.

  • “They have to wait for me to kind of amble over there.”

    Homepage | INFORUM | Fargo, ND

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  • Sydney Newhall "ambled downstairs toward the press room." The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel pg 10 Oct 3, 2010

‘amble’ has been looked up 2256 times, loved by 1 person, added to 58 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 9.