vagrant
Plural: vagrants
Noun
- A person without a settled home or regular work who wanders.
- a wanderer who has no established residence or visible means of support
- A person who wanders from place to place; a nomad, a wanderer.
- A person without settled employment or habitation who usually supports himself or herself by begging or some dishonest means; a tramp, a vagabond.
- Vagrans egista, a widely distributed Asian butterfly of the family Nymphalidae.
- An animal, typically a bird, found outside its species' usual range.
Adjective Satellite
- continually changing especially as from one abode or occupation to another
- "vagrant hippies of the sixties"
Adj
- Wandering from place to place, particularly when without any settled employment or habitation.
- Of or pertaining to a vagabond or vagrant, or a person fond of wandering.
- Moving without a certain direction; roving, wandering; also, erratic, unsettled.
Examples
- a vagrant beggar
- Every morning before work, I see that poor vagrant around the neighbourhood begging for food.
- My opponent’s strategy seemed like a VAGRANT one, with words scattered aimlessly on Words With Friends.
Origin / Etymology
From Late Middle English vagraunt (“person without proper employment; person without a fixed abode, tramp, vagabond”) [and other forms], probably from Anglo-Norman vagarant, wakerant, waucrant (“vagrant”) [and other forms] and Old French walcrant, waucrant (“roaming, wandering”) [and other forms], perhaps influenced by Latin vagārī, the present active infinitive of vagor (“to ramble, stroll about; to roam, rove, wander”). Old French walcrant is the present participle of vagrer, wacrer, walcrer (“to wander, wander about as a vagabond”) [and other forms], from Frankish *walkrōn (“to wander about”), the frequentative form of *walkōn (“to walk; to wander; to stomp, trample; to full (make cloth denser and firmer by soaking, beating and pressing)”), from Proto-Germanic *walkōną (“to roll about, wallow; to full”), *walkaną (“to turn, wind; to toss; to roll, roll about; to wend; to walk; to wander; to trample; to full”),
from Proto-Indo-European *walg-, *walk-, *welgʰ-, *welk-, *wolg- (“to turn, twist; to move”), ultimately from *welH- (“to turn; to wind”).
The English word is cognate with Latin valgus (“bandy-legged, bow-legged”), Middle Dutch walken (“to knead; to full”), Old English wealcan (“to roll”), ġewealcan (“to go; to walk about”), Old High German walchan, walkan (“to move up and down; to press together; to full; to walk; to wander”), Old Norse valka (“to wander”). See further at walk.
Synonyms
aimless, drifter, drifting, floater, floating, vagabond, Jack out of doors, ambler, bum, casual, clochard, derelict, dero, down-and-out, down-and-outer, epithite, flaneur, gadling, hobo, inconstant, itinerant, knight of the road, landleaper, landloper, landlouper, nomad, nomadic, paker, palliard, peregrinator, peripatetic, pike, piker, rambler, ranger, rogue, rolling stone, rough sleeper, rover, saunterer, scatterling, skelder, skell, straggler, straggling, straying, stroller, stumblebum, swaggie, swagman, toerag, tramp, truant, vagrant, vagrom, vague, waif, walke-street, wanderer, wayward, yagger
Scrabble Score: 11
vagrant: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordvagrant: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
vagrant: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary