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
It was a Monday afternoon when two Detroit police officers were flagged down by Rudolph Henderson, a 43-year-old vagabond.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 20, 2023
There was another kind of object in the sky, the wandering or vagabond stars called planets.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
“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
"Today we were thrown out into the street - they made us vagabonds," Karapetyan told Armenia A1+, a partner of Reuters.
From Reuters ● Sep. 23, 2023
Obsessed with the search for home, he made music, whether with The Band or as a solo artist, that improvised a map for vagabonds without a precise set of directions.
From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2023
He said they were a "band of vagabonds" who were trying to escape from conventional regimental discipline.
From BBC ● Nov. 26, 2022
He had the air of an aristocrat and as he turned to gaze at Blackberry from his great brown eyes, Hazel began to see himself as a ragged wanderer, leader of a gang of vagabonds.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
Definitions 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.
