Origin of Term
The term derives from a river located in present-day Turkey and known to the Greeks as (Μαίανδρος) Maiandros or Maeander, characterised by a very convoluted path along the lower reach. As such, even in Classical Greece (and in later Greek thought) the name of the river had become a common noun meaning anything convoluted and winding, such as decorative patterns or speech and ideas, as well as the geomorphological feature. Strabo said: "... its course is so exceedingly winding that everything winding is called meandering."
The Meander River is located south of Izmir, east of the ancient Greek town of Miletus, now, Milet, Turkey. It flows through a graben in the Menderes Massif, but has a flood plain much wider than the meander zone in its lower reach. In the Turkish name, the Büyük Menderes River, Menderes is from "Meander".
Read more about this topic: Meander
Famous quotes containing the words origin of, origin and/or term:
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The origin of all the family there.
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Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed,—a, to me, equally mysterious origin for it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)