[syn: aimless, drifting, floating, vagabond, vagrant]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Vagabond \Vag"a*bond\, v. i.
To play the vagabond; to wander like a vagabond; to stroll.
[1913 Webster]
On every part my vagabonding sight
Did cast, and drown mine eyes in sweet delight.
--Drummond.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Vagabond \Vag"a*bond\, a. [F., fr. L. vagabundus, from vagari to
stroll about, from vagus strolling. See Vague.]
1. Moving from place to place without a settled habitation;
wandering. "Vagabond exile." --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
2. Floating about without any certain direction; driven to
and fro.
[1913 Webster]
To heaven their prayers
Flew up, nor missed the way, by envious winds
Blown vagabond or frustrate. --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
3. Being a vagabond; strolling and idle or vicious.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Vagabond \Vag"a*bond\, n.
One who wanders from place to place, having no fixed
dwelling, or not abiding in it, and usually without the means
of honest livelihood; a vagrant; a tramp; hence, a worthless
person; a rascal.
[1913 Webster]
A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be. --Gen. iv. 12.
[1913 Webster]
Note: In English and American law, vagabond is used in bad
sense, denoting one who is without a home; a strolling,
idle, worthless person. Vagabonds are described in old
English statutes as "such as wake on the night and
sleep on the day, and haunt customable taverns and
alehouses, and routs about; and no man wot from whence
they came, nor whither they go." In American law, the
term vagrant is employed in the same sense. Cf Rogue,
n., 1. --Burrill. --Bouvier.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
vagabond
adj 1: wandering aimlessly without ties to a place or community;
"led a vagabond life"; "a rootless wanderer" [syn:
rootless, vagabond]
2: continually changing especially as from one abode or
occupation to another; "a drifting double-dealer"; "the
floating population"; "vagrant hippies of the sixties" [syn:
aimless, drifting, floating, vagabond, vagrant]
n 1: anything that resembles a vagabond in having no fixed
place; "pirate ships were vagabonds of the sea"
2: a wanderer who has no established residence or visible means
of support [syn: vagrant, drifter, floater, vagabond]
v 1: move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in
search of food or employment; "The gypsies roamed the
woods"; "roving vagabonds"; "the wandering Jew"; "The
cattle roam across the prairie"; "the laborers drift from
one town to the next"; "They rolled from town to town"
[syn: roll, wander, swan, stray, tramp, roam,
cast, ramble, rove, range, drift, vagabond]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
159 Moby Thesaurus words for "vagabond":
Arab, Bowery bum, arab, bat around, beach bum, beachcomber, beggar,
beggarly fellow, bird of passage, blighter, bo, budmash, bum,
bummer, caitiff, canter, circumforaneous, count ties, derelict,
devil, discursive, divagate, divagatory, dogie, drift, drifter,
drifting, drunkard, errant, flit, flitting, floater, floating,
footloose, footloose and fancy-free, fugitive, gad, gad about,
gadding, gallivant, gamin, gamine, go about, go the rounds,
good-for-naught, good-for-nothing, guttersnipe, gypsy, gypsy-like,
gypsyish, hit the road, hit the trail, hobo, homeless waif,
human wreck, idler, itinerant, jaunt, knock about, knock around,
landloper, landloping, lazzarone, loafer, losel, lowlife,
mauvais sujet, mean wretch, meander, meandering, migrant,
migrational, migratory, mooch, mucker, mudlark, no-good, nomad,
nomadic, nomadize, pauvre diable, perambulatory, peregrinate,
pererrate, peripatetic, piker, pilgarlic, poor creature,
poor devil, prowl, ragamuffin, ragman, ragpicker, ramble, rambling,
range, ranging, roadster, roam, roaming, rolling stone, rounder,
rove, rover, roving, run about, runagate, sad case, sad sack,
saunter, shack, shifting, ski bum, skid-row bum, stiff, straggle,
straggling, stray, straying, street Arab, street arab,
street urchin, stroll, strolling, sundowner, surf bum, swagger,
swagman, swagsman, tatterdemalion, tennis bum, traipse, traipsing,
tramp, tramper, transient, transitory, transmigratory, traveler,
truant, turnpiker, urchin, vag, vagabondize, vagrant, vaurien,
waif, waifs and strays, walk the tracks, wander, wanderer,
wandering, wastrel, wayfare, wayfarer, wayfaring, weary,
worthless fellow, wretch
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary:
Vagabond
from Lat. vagabundus, "a wanderer," "a fugitive;" not used
opprobriously (Gen. 4:12, R.V., "wanderer;" Ps. 109:10; Acts
19:13, R.V., "strolling").
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):
VAGABOND. One who wanders about idly, who has no certain dwelling. The
ordinances of the French define a vagabond almost in the same terms. Dalloz,
Dict. Vagabondage. See Vattel, liv. 1, Sec. 219, n.