stray.
Any domestic animal that lacks an enclosure, proper place, or company, but that instead wanders at large or is lost; an estray.
Meaning & usage
Any domestic animal that lacks an enclosure, proper place, or company, but that instead wanders at large or is lost; an estray.
A person who is lost.
An act of wandering off or going astray.
An area of common land for use by domestic animals.
An article of movable property, of which the owner is not known (see waif).
waifs and strays
An instance of atmospheric interference.
A casual or offhand insult.
A submissive that has not committed to submit to any particular dominant, particulary in petplay.
Ellipsis of stray bullet.
catch a stray
Where this word comes from
From Middle English stray, strey, from Anglo-Norman estray, stray, Old French estrai, from the verb (see below).
To wander, as from a direct course; to deviate, or go out of the way.
To wander from company or outside proper limits; to rove or roam at large; to go astray.
To wander from the path of duty or rectitude; to err.
To cause to stray; lead astray.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English strayen, partly from Old French estraier, from Vulgar Latin via strata, and partly from Middle English strien, streyen, streyȝen (“to spread, scatter”), from Old English strēġan (“to strew”).
Having gone astray; strayed; wandering.
The alley is full of stray cats rummaging through the garbage.
In the wrong place; misplaced.
a stray comma
a stray bullet
Where this word comes from
From Middle English stray, from the noun (see above).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.