Origins - A Walkaway

A ambulatory patient, as in a hospital or convalescent home, is finally well enough to get out of bed and walk around. A perambulator, often shortened to pram, is a baby carriage, a vehicle for walking an infant through the streets (per-, through). To perambulate is, etymologically, ‘to walk through’; hence, to stroll around.
To amble is to walk aimlessly; an ambulance is so called because originally it was composed of two stretcher-bearers who walked of the battlefield with a wounded soldier; and a preamble is, by etymology, something that ‘walks before’ (pre-, before, beforehand), hence an introduction or introductory statement, a preamble to the speech, etc; or any event that is introductory or preliminary to another, as in ‘An increase in inflationary factors in the economy is often a preamble to a drop in the stock market.’
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