noun
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the state or condition of being a vagrant
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the conduct or mode of living of a vagrant
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of vagrancy
Explanation
Vagrancy is a legal term that's used to talk about people who are experiencing homelessness. In many places, the category of vagrancy includes things like loitering and panhandling. Arresting people for vagrancy — essentially for not having a permanent home — has been controversial for a long time in the U.S. Opponents consider such a charge to be unconstitutional, since it's not a crime to be so poor or disenfranchised that you don't have a place to live and must rely on charity. Still, many people connect vagrancy with crime and laziness. The Germanic root of this word means "wander."
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:
Now he’s vying to be the first homeless mayor of a city overwhelmed by vagrancy, disorder and crime.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 29, 2026
In essence, it was a vagrancy ordinance by another name.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2025
Once released from prison, she emigrated to New York where in 1902 there is a record of her being placed in a workhouse as punishment for vagrancy.
From BBC ● May 22, 2025
The story takes place during a season of vagrancy in Jacqueline’s life, tracking her efforts to find shelter and enough food to keep from fainting.
From New York Times ● Feb. 8, 2024
Clearly, the purpose of the black codes in general and the vagrancy laws in particular was to establish another system of forced labor.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
Ah! wild wit, now at last Thy vagrancies are o'er; The ear and gazing eye That you enthrall'd before.
From The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 14, No. 382, July 25, 1829 by Various
Her truancies and vagrancies concerned them not: she was a law to herself, like the birds and squirrels.
From Openings in the Old Trail by Harte, Bret
For now he would divert me to another topic and again bring me back to her, so that it all seemed the vagrancies of a boy's inconsequent chatter.
From Ensign Knightley and Other Stories by Mason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)
Perhaps Uncle Contarine continued clement merely because in the nature of things his responsibilities for the vagrancies of his kinsman were inevitably less intimate.
From Oliver Goldsmith by Buckland, E. S. Lang
If we would have our hearts calm, we must let Him guide them, sway them, curb their vagrancies, stimulate their desires, and satisfy the desires which He has stimulated.
From Expositions of Holy Scripture Second Corinthians, Galatians, and Philippians Chapters I to End. Colossians, Thessalonians, and First Timothy. by Maclaren, Alexander
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.
