Amble on over here partner ...

A recent comment thread on Facebook motivated me to look closer at four words related to describing forms of walking. The four words are amble, mosey, saunter, and sashay. Having watched a lot of westerns growing up (my dad controlled the TV), I often heard phrases on those shows like "Mosey on up to the bar cowboy" or "Amble on over here partner". I decided to look them all up and I was surprised to find that although there were a few slight differences in their descriptions among the various sources I used, basically all four have pretty specific definitions. Here's what I found:

Amble - To walk slowly or leisurely
Mosey - To wander or shuffle casually 

Saunter - To walk relaxed, without hurry or effort, in an idle manner

Sashay - To walk in an ostentatious yet casual manner, typically with exaggerated movements of the hips and shoulders.

So an amble is slow and easy, a mosey involves wandering or shuffling, a saunter is idled or relaxed and unhurried, and a sashay ... well as a friend put it: "May West had a pretty good sashay!"