go astray

1. Wander off the right path or subject; also, wander into evil or error. For example, It was hard to follow the lecturer's gist, since he kept going astray, or The gang members led him astray, and he ended up in court. This expression alludes to sheep or other animals that stray from the rest of the flock. Indeed, Handel's oratorio Messiah (1741) has this chorus: “All we like sheep have gone astray, Every one to his own way.” [c. 1300]

Example Sentences

To “gang aft agley” means to “often go astray.”

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There’s no space to go astray; their energy is concentrated.

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Some good news about China's relations with the other world superpower would not go astray.

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It’s just that I go astray here and there.”

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However, it’s only too soon that things go astray from the kind of filmmaking that made “Black Dynamite” such a contemporary cult classic.

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Related Words

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