Meanders are semicircular bends in stream channels. The meander in this picture is in a creek near my house.
The most famous meandering river in history was the Meander River in western Turkey, now known by its Turkish name as the Büyük Menderes (Big Meander). The word meander derives via Greek from the name of this river in the antiquity, Maiandros. Maiandros is neither Turkish nor Greek; it appears to be a very old Anatolian word with an obscure meaning.
To the north of the Büyük Menderes is the Küçük Menderes (Little Meander), the ancient Cayster (Caystros).
The next posts in this series will be about the colorful (mostly, turbid brown, actually) histories of the Meander and the Cayster rivers.