stray

[strey]

verb (used without object)

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.

noun

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

/ 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

• strayer noun
• unstraying adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of stray¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of stray¹

C14: from Old French estraier, from Vulgar Latin estragāre (unattested), from Latin extrā- outside + vagāri to roam; see _astray , _extravagant , _stravaig

Example Sentences

Cummings "strayed far from the proper role" of an adviser, she added, and tried to make "key decisions" in Johnson's place - a situation the former prime minister appeared happy with, she wrote.

Read more on BBC

I see something in its eyes, the same caged look that the neighborhood stray cats get when Ma catches them clawing up our mailbox.

Read more on Literature

To seriously consider the answers to these questions would require Penelope to do something called “going off on a tangent,” which is another way of saying “to stray from the subject at hand.”

Read more on Literature

Cars in their assigned parking spots; a stray cat, the one Michael had secretly named Tuxedo, slinking around the bushes; Mr. Mosley, the maintenance man, hefting a can of paint toward a vacant apartment.

Read more on Literature

That tension mirrors the Democratic party itself, led and funded by urban professionals who are increasingly aware of just how far they strayed from their working-class roots.

Read more on Salon

Related Words

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