MEANING
Moving from place to place, usually staying briefly in each location to work.
Use it for
describing a worker without one fixed workplace; giving a character a life of temporary stays; distinguishing a traveling livelihood from tourism; portraying a trade practiced across many placesDistinguishes movement linked to temporary work from aimless wandering, tourism, or permanent migration. Writing functions: Characterization / Transient work.
Words that belong together
- an itinerant worker
- an itinerant musician
- an itinerant preacher
On the page
An itinerant repairer arrived each spring with a box of tools and news from the coast.
Her years as an itinerant musician had taught her to sleep through unfamiliar noises.
Word forms
- Base
- itinerant
Usage notes
Adjective, often before a noun, and countable noun for a traveling worker. Noun: an itinerant; plural itinerants. Not normally compared. Register: neutral. Commonness: uncommon (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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