The design is common to the present-day in classicizing architecture, and is adopted frequently as a decorative motif for borders for many modern printed materials. In ancient Greece they appear in many architectural friezes, and in bands on the pottery of ancient Greece from the Geometric Period onward. Meanders are common decorative elements in Greek and Roman art. On another hand, as Karl Kerenyi pointed out, 'the meander is the figure of a labyrinth in linear form'. On one hand, the name 'meander' recalls the twisting and turning path of the Maeander River in Asia Minor (present day Turkey) that is typical of river pathways. Usually the term is used for motifs with straight lines and right angles and the many versions with rounded shapes are called running scrolls or, following the entomological origin of the term, may be identified as water wave motifs.

Such a design also may be called the Greek fret or Greek key design, although these terms are modern designations even though the decorative motif appears thousands of years before that culture, thousands of miles away from Greece, and among cultures that are continents away from it. Among some Italians, these patterns are known as 'Greek Lines'. Meander motif in the streets of Rhodes (Greece), in pavement made from beach stonesĪ meander or meandros ( Greek: Μαίανδρος) is a decorative border constructed from a continuous line, shaped into a repeated motif.

Meander symbol