"to wind"

ist ganz in Ordnung. Allerdings dann wahrscheinlich eher mit Simple Present.

meanders

finde ich auch ganz in Ordnung und keinesfalls kurvenreicher als "winds (its way)."

Doch dude, Mäander sind viel mehr als nur Kurven, das müssen wirklich Schlingen / Schlaufen sein:
http://www.geo.uu.nl/fg/palaeogeography/pictu...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons...

The river follows a winding path

z. B.

@Sage:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meander
Definition of MEANDER
intransitive verb
1: to follow a winding or intricate course
2: to wander aimlessly or casually without urgent destination : ramble

Additionally re your "Nowitna" link:
http://books.google.com/books?id=aU_xAAAAMAAJ...
The river is so long and winding that numerous parties could use the river ...

Is there really a difference in English? You can't argue what the English word "meander" means based on what "mäandern" means in German, or what the original word meant in Latin or Greek.

In my experience "meander" and "wind" are pretty much equal in terms of "curviness". "Meander" is more literary and is often used figuratively. "Meander" suggest to me more aimlessness, but that may be due to it's figurative use.

Edit: I'm not advocating that Ferenczi use meander here; in fact, I think "winds (its way)" is better. I'm just not sure I follow these objections to "meander".

I was just coming to that, of course the verb as it's usually used (figuratively) means nothing more than curviness, and if the OT was about a path or snowboard traces or drunks walking then meander would be fine.
But I think when the whole thing is about a river then one should be a bit more careful. Meander formation is highly complex and the causes aren't fully explored yet. There are a lot of curves in a river that can be explained by soil properties and slopes, and they are just curves, but not meanders.
And I did not say meander was wrong, I just said one has to know what a meander really is before using the word to describe a river....

I don't know, Sage. I'm not a geologist. I think to the general public the cause is not relevant to the word's meaning. At least not in English.

I would use 'winds (its way)' too. I'm also not sure the problem with 'meander' is that it would signifiy some other physical description -- I don't think of it as implying more curves -- but I have the feeling it would seem more literary or poetic in diction, and perhaps a little less idiomatic.

ince 'durch das Tal establishes location I'd avoid meander, which indeed has a sense of aimlessless.'Wind's through the valley, winds its way through the valley'

The Meander was a river in what is now Turkey, by the way.

...

I don't see how "to meander" is "less idiomatic" (according to #9). Leo even has Siehe Wörterbuch: meander - sich winden, schlängeln.

And why wouldn't a creek or river "meander through a valley"?
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rl...
These are all viable examples, IMO. I'm not insisting the OP use "meander," I'm just wondering what all the "uproar" is about; it's a perfectly good word to use in this type of context.

Lord Byron beschreibt die Windungen des Rheins in 'Childe Harolds Pilgrimage' so:

The castle crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks that bear the vine
...
...
The river nobly foams and flows,
The charm of this enchanted ground,
And all its thousand turns disclose
Some fresher beauty varying round

. . .

I don't know who Kenton M. Stewart is, but his poem is even accompanied by a beautiful picture of a meandering river:
http://www.ecology.info/river-that-meanders.htm
The River That Meanders
Kenton M. Stewart

Oh, the river that meanders has an aimless kind of flow…
in the sense that such a river seems to not know where to go.
Is it right or left, or left or right? Who cares? And I don’t know.
Yet it’s that lack of clear direction that the river seems to show!

And on and on ... At any rate, it all sounds pretty darn idiomatic to me. :-)

And hey, here's a biblical take on the subject:
http://www.goodshepherdmilford.org/sermons/se...
Rivers like floods make great metaphors. We can see them as metaphors for our own lives; - from the energized young river of our youth, to the winding meandering river of our old age that empties into the sea.

Meander and wind conjure up different images for me; I associate meander with a very slow-moving river in a plain e.g. Rivers in valleys generally flow more quickly. They are quite often synonymous, but some contexts require a choice IMO. I'd say the Rhine meanders (or used to) in the region around Worms, but winds through the valley past St. Goar, e.g.

but maybe that's putting too fine a point on it...

... bei Aachen gibt es ein Flüßchen namens 'Wurm' - Die heißt so, weil sie so stark mäandert, daß sich ihre eigenen Windungen fast berühren . . .

ihre eigenen Windungen fast berühren . .

a good example of where one could write meander and not wind, avoids having to describe the tightness of the winding, I'd say

Edit: "Rivers like floods make great metaphors. We can see them as metaphors for our own lives..."
well put, Dude; one of the things I enjoy so much in Germany are the bike tracks along almost all of her rivers...

i suppose "meandering" entails a bit of the laziness of a slow-moving river. If you've ever seen the Mississippi wind its way towards the Gulf of Mexico from an airplane, it's an awesome sight, especially further south, like above Louisiana/Mississippi. There it's a prime example of a river "meandering." I'm not sure, however, if winding is less curvy than meandering. For a river perhaps, if only because by the time it gets to meandering, it's usually in the lowlands and fairly close to its ocean. But if you look at some serpentine roads winding their way up or down a mountain, they tend to be very curvy as well.

Rivers like floods make great metaphors.

A remark I also endorse, as a minor footnote to which one might add the meandering: "I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river / Is a strong brown god — sullen, untamed and intractable, / Patient to some degree, ... " (*gähn*)

;-)