Thoreau, who wrote magnificently about the pleasures of walking aimlessly through nature, insisted that saunterers were, by virtue of their mode of ambulating, not just going toward but already in the Saint Terre. A lovely idea, and not far wrong, etymologically. Saunter actually comes from the Middle English word for "walking about musingly"; it is derived from the word "saint," as holy men were thought to spend much of their time in this manner. See: BUM, DRIFTER, FLÂNEUR, LOAF, SCAMP, SCROUNGER.