stray

American  

[strey] / streɪ /

verb (used without object)

• strays,
  present (3rd person singular)
• strayed,
  past participle,  past
• straying
  present participle

1. to deviate from the direct course, leave the proper place, or go beyond the proper limits, especially without a fixed course or purpose.

   to stray from the main road.

   Synonyms:

   range, rove

2. to wander; roam.

   I strayed through the maze of the forest.

   Synonyms:

   meander, drift

3. to go astray; deviate, as from a moral, religious, or philosophical course.

   to stray from the teachings of the church.

   Synonyms:

   err

4. to digress or become distracted.

   to stray from the main topic.

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noun

• strays
  plural

1. a domestic animal found wandering at large or without an owner.

   The humane society traps strays, spays or neuters them, and returns them to the feral colony in which they were found.

2. any person or animal who is homeless or friendless.

   For a popular girl, she has the oddest misfit friends—her mom says she just can’t help but collect strays.

3. a person or animal that strays.

   the strays of a flock.

4. Radio. strays, static.

adjective

1. straying or having strayed, as a domestic animal.

2. found or occurring apart from others or as an isolated or casual instance; incidental or occasional.

3. Radio. undesired.

   stray capacitance.

stray British  

/ streɪ /

verb

1. to wander away, as from the correct path or from a given area

2. to wander haphazardly

3. to digress from the point, lose concentration, etc

4. to deviate from certain moral standards

---

noun

1. 1. a domestic animal, fowl, etc, that has wandered away from its place of keeping and is lost

   2. ( as modifier )

      stray dogs

2. a lost or homeless person, esp a child

   waifs and strays

3. an isolated or random occurrence, specimen, etc, that is out of place or outside the usual pattern

adjective

1. scattered, random, or haphazard

   a stray bullet grazed his thigh

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• strayer
  noun
• unstraying
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• strays
  plural

Participles

• straying
  present
• strayed
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• stray
  simple
• strays
  simple
• have strayed
  perfect
• has strayed
  perfect
• am straying
  progressive
• are straying
  progressive
• is straying
  progressive
• have been straying
  perfect progressive
• has been straying
  perfect progressive

Past

• strayed
  simple
• had strayed
  perfect
• was straying
  progressive
• were straying
  progressive
• had been straying
  perfect progressive

Future

• will stray
  simple
• will have strayed
  perfect
• will be straying
  progressive
• will have been straying
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of stray

First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English verb straien, strayen, from Old French estraier, from unrecorded Vulgar Latin extrāvagāre “to wander out of bounds”; see origin at extravagant

Explanation

Little Red Riding Hood strayed from the path and ended up getting eaten by the Big Bad Wolf. When you stray, you wander off without paying attention to where you're going, and sometimes you get in trouble. Stray can be used as a verb or as a noun. Your attention may stray when you're tired and listening to a very boring lecture. You may be the kind of person who brings home strays, the dogs and cats that have wandered away from their homes and are lost and hungry. When you're organizing your sock drawer and you've got one sock without a mate, you might find the stray sock left behind in the dryer.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

stray strays strayed straying

A stray SpaceX rocket has crashed into the Moon, forming a crater near a famous lunar landmark and giving scientists a unique research opportunity that could help future missions.

From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026

Utility company Consolidated Edison has detected stray voltage at the site weeks after the death, a possible cause for the horse’s sudden flight.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026

Roughly once every 100,000 years, a star in a given galaxy may stray close enough to one of these black holes to be torn apart in a tidal disruption event.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 28, 2026

Eventually, they used stray dogs, hoping they could detect the scent of flesh.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026

Mrs. Flint suffered from thinning hair, and so there were always stray strands drifting around the kitchen floor—more than enough to stuff four mattresses.

From "Secrets at Sea" by Richard Peck

“Too often, the U.S. strays from long-term economic priorities, while China can go too far and fail to acknowledge its mistakes until it is too late. There is a happy median in there somewhere.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026

When our conversation strays into this territory, he turns blunt.

From Salon ● May 15, 2026

“Yesteryear” strays from this well-worn narrative with Natalie, a deliciously unlikable protagonist whose greatest flaw is her competence.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2026

For casual listeners, there are other signs: Inconsistent drum patterns, bland lyrics, and a singer who never strays from the melody or lets rip on the final chorus.

From BBC ● Jan. 16, 2026

“I call him Froggie because he so often strays away—just like the Frog that would a-wooing go, whether his mother would let him or no. Don’t you, Froggie?”

From "Mary Poppins" by P. L. Travers

Instead, it strayed off course and eventually reached its final resting place on the moon’s surface.

From Salon ● Aug. 6, 2026

And though she liked the show, she thought it strayed too far from the books.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026

Since he released his last album, “McCartney III,” at the end of 2020, Paul McCartney has not strayed far from the limelight.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 3, 2026

The athleisure giant has struggled with tariffs and competition, and analysts have said it has strayed from its core consumers and workout wear.

From MarketWatch ● May 18, 2026

One writer marveled at Osage girls who attended the best boarding schools and wore sumptuous French clothing, as if “une très jolie demoiselle of the Paris boulevards had inadvertently strayed into this little reservation town.”

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann

The move had some customers questioning if the app was straying too far from its original purpose.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026

But Venters said that the brand’s namesake designer is still dead-set on the company remaining a stalwart British brand-not straying too far from its cultural origin.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026

Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina has resigned following a political crisis over Russia-bound Ukrainian drones straying into Latvian territory.

From BBC ● May 14, 2026

All of them are at their best when they behave relatively normally instead of straying into caricatures.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 29, 2026

Lyddie tried to keep her eyes from straying toward the copies of the weekly, which were thrown with seeming carelessness on the parlor table.

From "Lyddie" by Katherine Paterson

Related Words

• deviate
• drift
• err
• meander
• roam
• swerve