stray

Definition

  • noun: a domestic animal that is wandering at large or is lost
  • verb: to go in a direction that is away from a group or from the place where you should be
  • verb: as
  • verb: to wander from company, restraint, or proper limits
  • often + 'from'
  • synonyms: wander, roam, deviate

Examples

  • Her eyes 'strayed from' her computer to the window. [=she stopped looking at her computer and began looking at/out the window]

  • a 'straying' husband [=a husband who has sexual relations with a woman who is not his wife]

  • I matched up the socks in the laundry but I was left with one 'stray'. [=one extra sock]

Movie clips

Movie quotes

  • (..) Well... almost nothing. - So, do you like your new house? - I like it. The people who used to live there fed these stray cats, so they were always around, and it drove my mother nuts. And then she cut down their tree. Is that a funeral? (..)
    1999 American Beauty