What is the meaning of ranging?

verb

• Change or be different within limits.
  • usage: "Estimates for the losses in the earthquake range as high as $2 billion"; "Interest rates run from 5 to 10 percent"; "The instruments ranged from tuba to cymbals"; "My students range from very bright to dull"
  • synonyms: range, run
• Move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment.
  • usage: "The gypsies roamed the woods"; "roving vagabonds"; "the wandering Jew"; "The cattle roam across the prairie"; "the laborers drift from one town to the next"; "They rolled from town to town"
  • synonyms: roll, wander, swan, stray, tramp, roam, cast, ramble, rove, range, drift, vagabond
• Have a range; be capable of projecting over a certain distance, as of a gun.
  • usage: "This gun ranges over two miles"
  • synonyms: range
• Range or extend over; occupy a certain area.
  • usage: "The plants straddle the entire state"
  • synonyms: range, straddle
• Lay out orderly or logically in a line or as if in a line.
  • usage: "lay out the clothes"; "lay out the arguments"
  • synonyms: range, array, lay out, set out
• Feed as in a meadow or pasture.
  • usage: "the herd was grazing"
  • synonyms: crop, browse, graze, range, pasture
• Let eat.
  • usage: "range the animals in the prairie"
  • synonyms: range
• Assign a rank or rating to.
  • usage: "how would you rank these students"; "The restaurant is rated highly in the food guide"
  • synonyms: rate, rank, range, order, grade, place

adjective

• Wandering freely.
  • usage: "at night in bed... His slowly ranging thoughts... Encountered her"