vagabond
Americanadjective
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wandering from place to place without any settled home; nomadic.
a vagabond tribe.
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leading an unsettled or carefree life.
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disreputable; worthless; shiftless.
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of, relating to, or characteristic of a vagabond.
vagabond habits.
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having an uncertain or irregular course or direction.
a vagabond voyage.
noun
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a person with no fixed home
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an idle wandering beggar or thief
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(modifier) of or like a vagabond; shiftless or idle
Synonym Usage
See vagrant.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of vagabond
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English vagabound (from Old French vagabond ), from Late Latin vagābundus “wandering, vagrant,” equivalent to Latin vagā(rī) “to wander” + -bundus adjective suffix
Explanation
A vagabond is someone who moves around a lot. Picture Boxcar Willie, bandana on a stick thrown over his shoulder, going wherever the breeze takes him. Vagabond can also be an adjective, a nomadic tribe is a vagabond one, or the person who moved eight times in two years is living a vagabond life. It's from the Latin word vagabundus (from vagari, "wander") which means "inclined to wander." So — if you were born a ramblin' man, you might just be a vagabond.
Vocabulary lists containing vagabond
"The Odyssey" by Homer, Books 14–18
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Bless Me, Ultima
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Tolkien Reading Day, List 1
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Its stone fireplace comes to rest on what appear to be colossal boulders deposited by the last vagabond glacier.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
A friend unexpectedly hosted a vagabond queen who birthed a litter in their place.
From Salon ● Dec. 6, 2024
Before moving to Nashville, where she still lives, and launching as a solo artist, Ferrell was a vagabond who traveled between the Big Easy and Seattle.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 1, 2024
But over the following years, purported sightings of Majorana multiplied: as a beggar in Naples, a monk in Calabria, and a vagabond in South America.
From Science Magazine ● Dec. 20, 2023
Shin did not yet know this, but grassroots capitalism, vagabond trading, and rampant corruption were creating cracks in the police state that surrounded Camp 14.
From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden
“The door was always open, for surfers, people on their way from different countries, vagabonds traveling through that he felt a kindred spirit with,” Proctor recalled.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 16, 2025
"We are for the mavericks, misfits and vagabonds of the industry to come and try things out. So, the heart that the former theatre had will continue to come across here."
From BBC ● Jan. 5, 2024
Although the pizza-pilfering vagabonds — and a variety of other creatures — thrive in cities, for many wild animals urban environments are unappealing homes, covered in concrete and carved up by car traffic.
From New York Times ● Sep. 4, 2023
The chapter continues: "Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places."
From Salon ● Jun. 13, 2022
Bigwig’s word was hlessil, which I have rendered in various places in the story as wanderers, scratchers, vagabonds.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
