gadabout

/ˈɡædəbaʊt/

Etymology

Deverbal from gad about.

gadabout means A person who restlessly moves from place to place, seeking amusement or the companionship of others. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.

Why this word is great

GADABOUT — [Noun] A person who restlessly moves from place to place, seeking amusement or social companionship. Deverbal from the verb phrase 'gad about', where 'gad' (meaning to move about restlessly or idly) is combined with 'about'. Unlike a flâneur, who strolls with a philosophical eye for urban detail, or an itinerant, who travels out of duty or labor, the gadabout pursues diversion as vocation. It is the click of heels toward the next lit doorway, the calendar a mosaic of penciled-in engagements, the soul for whom stillness is a kind of social death—a portrait of motion as an end in itself, where the journey is not toward anything, but away from the self.

noun

A person who restlessly moves from place to place, seeking amusement or the companionship of others.“I was among the last to board the ferry. ... Chilean tourists, Uruguayan doctors, old Argentine gadabouts of high-society heritage, ladies wearing strident perfumes, families, all of them in those same light blue sneakers, like Smurfs.”