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Stray   /streɪ/   Listen
Stray

verb
(past & past part. strayed; pres. part. straying)
1.
Move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment.  Synonyms: cast, drift, ramble, range, roam, roll, rove, swan, tramp, vagabond, wander.  "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"
2.
Wander from a direct course or at random.  Synonyms: drift, err.  "Don't drift from the set course"
3.
Lose clarity or turn aside especially from the main subject of attention or course of argument in writing, thinking, or speaking.  Synonyms: digress, divagate, wander.  "Her mind wanders" , "Don't digress when you give a lecture"



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"Stray" Quotes from Famous Books



... young patrician, as one might see for many days, even if he searched for rascals, as the philosopher did for an honest man, by lanthorn's light at noon. He has been following our steps, by my head!—to pick up our stray words, and weave ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... handkerchiefs with borders; cards painted by the artists of the family; palm-leaf fans covered with real flowers, or painted with imitation ones; sunflowers made of pasteboard, with portfolios behind them; pretty little parasols of flowers; Little Red Riding-hood, officiating as a receptacle for stray pennies; Japanese teapots, with the "cozy" made at home; little doyleys wrought with delightful designs from "Pretty Peggy," and numberless other ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... work, as is singularly illustrated by the case of Andrew Ransom, a stray Englishman captured near St. Augustine in the late 1600's. He was condemned to death. The executional device failed, however, and the padres in attendance took it as an act of God and led Ransom to sanctuary at the friary. Meanwhile, ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy

... took both risks—with contagions in a field hospital hard by the cemetery, and with shells and stray balls when she fled at moments from the stinking wards to find good air and to commune with her heart's desires and designs. There was one hazard beside which foul air and stray shots were negligible, a siege within this siege. To be insured against the mere mathematical risk ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... to stray I feel would come Though Italy were all fair skies to me, Though France's fields went mad with flowery foam And Blanc put on a special majesty. Not all could match the growing thought of home Nor tempt to exile. Look I not on ROME— This ancient, ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall

... on the saddle, he managed, by a most wonderful exertion, just to keep ahead of the long spears of his pursuers, who followed him to within sight of the fort. From that time there was an order that no one should stray far from the settlement. I did not know of this when I started, and was surprised to observe how earnestly my guide watched a deer, which appeared to have been frightened ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... match, shading it with his hand from the chilly wind, and stooped down. Yes; there was an unmistakable trail, and with renewed hope he hurried on, taking care not to stray to either side. Within the next ten minutes, to his delight, he caught the twinkle of a star-like point of light among the trees, a short ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... Georgia, and westward to Wisconsin. In light, dry, or rocky soil we find the exquisite, but usually solitary, blossom late in May until July, and, like most roses, it has the pleasant practice of putting forth a stray blossom or two in early autumn. The stamens of this species are turned outward so strongly that self- pollination must very rarely ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... all traces of the past out of sight. But this was curiously like all other early mornings in his consciousness, and he could not alienate himself from the wonted environment. He stood talking on every-day terms of idle speculation with the familiar policeman, about a stray parrot in the top of one of the trees, where it screamed and clawed at the dead branch to which it clung. Then he went carelessly indoors again as if he were secure of reading the reporter's story of it in that next day's paper ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... to ourselves we shall but stray; O, lead us in the narrow way: With wisest counsel guide us, And give us steadfastness, that we May henceforth truly follow thee, Whatever ...
— The Wedding Day - The Service—The Marriage Certificate—Words of Counsel • John Fletcher Hurst

... moments getting ready for the drive to Christ Church. I remember the cold, crisp air, the rapid motion, and can I ever forget it—the nearness and touch of Miss Dodan's person, perhaps only a hurried brushing past me of her arm, the stray touch of her floating hair, or the accidental stubbing of her foot against my own. It seemed a short, delicious drive. I fear my heart was almost equally divided between apprehension for my father's health and the joy of simple nearness to the woman I loved. At last we reached Christ Church. The ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap

... present condition. My languors and fatigues had now gained a pitch that was insupportable. The wound in my face had been chafed and inflamed by the cold water and the bleak air; and the pain attending it would no longer suffer my attention to stray. I sunk upon the floor, and entreated him to afford me the respite of ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... Callixenus, insisting that his proposal was unconstitutional, and this view of the case was applauded by some members of the assembly. But the majority kept crying out that it was monstrous if the people were to be hindered by any stray individual from doing what seemed to them right. And when Lysicus, embodying the spirit of those cries, formally proposed that if these persons would not abandon their action, they should be tried by the same vote along with the generals: a proposition to which the mob gave vociferous assent; ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... neatly embalmed. The hand of the restorer rests on it constantly; but this artist has not, as at Carcassonne, had miracles to accomplish. The interior is very still and empty, with small stony, whitewashed streets tenanted by a stray dog, a stray cat, a stray old woman. In the middle is a little place, with two or three cafes decorated by wide awnings—a little place of which the principal feature is a very bad bronze statue of Saint Louis by Pradier. It is almost as bad as the breakfast I had at the inn that ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... stolen, or stray'd, The heart of a young maid; Whoever the same shall find, And prove so very kind, To yield it on desire, They shall rewarded be, And that most handsomely, With kisses one, two, three. Cupid is the crier, Ring-a-ding, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... such a writer is like talking to a deaf man who catches at a stray word, makes answer beside the mark, and is led further and further into error by every attempt to explain. Yet, that our readers may fully appreciate the abilities of the new philosophers, we shall take the trouble to go over some of our ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... man turned round to encourage the dog, and at last, as he did this, a gust of wind blew off his hat, which went careering down the road by the side of the omnibus. Quick as thought, the dog darted after the hat, chased it and 'rounded it up,' as if it were a stray lamb or sheep, and by the time his master had descended from the top of the omnibus to get his lost property, the dog was waiting for him, wagging his tail, with the hat safely in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... with him, which he failed to keep. Then another. Then another, and another. I lay wait for him in likely places. I stalked him. I caught stray glimpses of him in various haunts. But he always ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth

... of one thing and do think of another,' pursued Mrs Tickit, 'I hardly need to tell you, Mr Clennam, that I think of the family. Because, dear me! a person's thoughts,' Mrs Tickit said this with an argumentative and philosophic air, 'however they may stray, will go more or less on what is uppermost in their minds. They will do it, sir, and a person can't ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... path is closely worn, Where prattling children often stray, And o'er their sainted mother mourn, To shield her memory ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... see him he fancied he was safe for the moment. He was drawing steadily closer to his goal, and was already beginning to feel the thrill of success, when a sharp blow on the right knee brought him headlong to the ground. A stray shot, fired possibly by some nervous miner who had taken his place at the saloon window, had struck him and smashed ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... the grave at my feet. Those who had interred Brimstone Billy, working hastily at an unlawful hour and in fear of molestation by the people, had hardly dug a grave. They had scooped out earth enough to hide their burden, and no more. A stray goat had kicked away the corner of the mound and exposed the coffin. It occurred to me, as I took some of the stones from the cairn, and heaped them to repair the breach, that had the miracle been the work of a body of men, they would have moved the ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw

... to stray very far from my subject, I want at this point to say something about rest, the greatly desired state that all busy workers are ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... five times successfully is above all to be avoided. I once knew a man with lung trouble who inadvertently strayed into an oculist's and was looked over and sent away with an order on an optician. And should you through error stray into the office of a nose and throat specialist, and ask him to treat you for varicose veins, he would probably ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... conjecture what heavenly peace came in when the Asian went out, but there is no one to tell what havoc was wrought on board ship; in fact, if there could have been such a thing as a witch, I should believe that imp sunk them, for a stray Levantine brig picked her—still agile as a monkey—from a wreck off the Cape de Verdes and carried her into Leghorn, where she took—will you mind, if I say?—leg-bail, and escaped from durance. What happened on her wanderings I'm ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... night the fire died down and the wood pile grew small. Neither of us moved to replenish the stock, and the darkness consequently came up very close to our faces. A few feet beyond the circle of firelight it was inky black. Occasionally a stray puff of wind set the willows shivering about us, but apart from this not very welcome sound a deep and depressing silence reigned, broken only by the gurgling of the river and the humming in ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood

... slumbered throughout the day, Now a fitful gust springs over the bay, My wandering thoughts no longer stray, I'll fix my overcoat buttons; Secure my old hat as best I may (And a shocking bad one it is, by the way), Blow a denser cloud from my stunted clay, And then, friend BELL, as the Frenchmen say, We'll "go ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... that determination I grew calm. And I sat over the fire and let my imagination stray toward some future when our troubles would be in the past and we ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert

... determined not to give in just yet; he had a very bad hand, but he might as well play the game out and trust to luck to gain a stray trick. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... gigantic birds, that were also guests of that justly celebrated establishment: they habitually made their stay within the enclosure, where they were permitted to stalk about unmolested, and pick up such stray scraps as were cast out by the domestics of ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... there should be greater rejoicing over the recovery of one stray sheep, or the saving of a soul that had been as one lost, than over the many who have not been in such jeopardy. In the safe-folded ninety and nine the shepherd had continued joy; but to him came a new accession of happiness, brighter and stronger because of his ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... the roof in a jiffy with two pails of water, and quenched the most dangerous flames before much harm was done. This he kept up till the chimney burned itself out, while Ben dodged about among the gables with a watering-pot, lest some stray sparks should be overlooked ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various

... seen them in mid-stream floating down in compact masses with the racing current and surrounded by their guardians in tubs, who, armed with long bamboos, smartly whack any bird which may happen to stray away from the flock until it rejoins ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... death. The palace has become a sieve, and the southern bulwark is destroyed; that part of the portal which looks towards the Monterilla is ruined; the finest buildings in the centre have suffered a great deal; innumerable houses at great distances from it have been also much injured by stray balls. Persons of all ages, classes, and conditions, who interfered in nothing, have been killed, not only in the streets, but even in their own apartments. The balls crossed each other in every ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... departure, horsemen appeared in the road near by. They had only time to throw themselves flat on the ground behind a log. From the conversation overheard, they were assured that they had narrowly escaped the night-riders on the lookout for stray negroes. The next year, 1822, Coffin himself joined a party going to Indiana by the southern route through Tennessee and Kentucky. In the latter State they were at one time overtaken by men who professed to be looking for a pet dog, but whose ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy

... reabsorb'd his soul; Warm from his heaving heart a sudden sigh Burst thro his lips; he turn'd his moisten'd eye, And thus besought his Angel: speak, my guide, Where leads the pass? and what yon purple tide? How the dim waves in blending ether stray! No lands behind them rise, no pinions on them play. There spreads, belike, that other unsail'd main I sought so long, and sought, alas, in vain; To gird this watery globe, and bring to light Old ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... he might, he could discover nothing; he could glean no stray scrap of information. The secrets that could be guarded by concealed Bramah locks and iron safes, with mystic words to be learned by the man who would open them, Philip Sheldon knew how to protect. Unhappily ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... Beatrice was being dressed for the evening's frolic, dipping into the bonbon box for a stray maple cream, and complaining of her headache. At this juncture her father tiptoed clumsily into her room and laid a white velvet jewel case on her dressing table, standing back to watch ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... be supposed that the author himself was inclined to lay such weight on these stray notes, as might be presumed from the form in which they are here presented. That might give the impression of a most methodic worker and thinker, who had before him a carefully-indexed commonplace book, into which he posted at the proper ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... instant she was on the horse before me, and, shooting down a couple of fellows who made a rush at my reins, I dashed out again. Stray shots were fired after us. But fortunately the Sepoys were all busy looting, most of them had laid down their muskets, and no one really took up the pursuit. I turned off from the parade ground, dashed down between the hedges ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... Because, of course, a stray dog or cat might have got shut up there by accident, and it would have startled Alice very much if it ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit

... a pretty face which allures him; tomorrow a fine conversationalist, or a musical person may attract. The next day a woman with tremendous vitality may charm him. So he wanders, but he does not intend to stray. One or several streaks in his make-up have been satisfied, but his wife still stands upon her pedestal as the woman who ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley

... view explains very much which is otherwise inexplicable. If into that series of publications came the genius of the unknown author of the Sonnets, touching some of the plays like stray sunbeams, and as the work progressed absorbing and filling all their framework,—it must yet be assumed that he did not labor without recompense. And so we may believe that Shakespeare from friend became patron, and that this employment, coming as the poet was passing to life's "steepy night," ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson

... mule brushed him against a projecting branch that laid his cheek open. To cap it, the mule blundered off the trail and fell, throwing rider and gripsack out upon the rocks. After that, Churchill walked, or stumbled, rather, over the apology for a trail, leading the mule. Stray and awful odors, drifting from each side the trail, told of the horses that had died in the rush for gold. But he did not mind. He was too sleepy. By the time Long Lake was reached, however, he had recovered from his sleepiness; and ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... beside the brook, his feet treading the elastic, velvety turf, and crushing heedlessly late primrose and stray violet, his blood quickened by the soft spring breeze, fragrant with hawthorn and the smell of the moist brown earth, La Boulaye's happiness gathered strength from the joy that on that day of spring seemed ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... afternoon it rained: the gloomy sky intensified his fatigue and despondence. About six o'clock, exhausted in mind and body, he had allowed his attention to stray, when the sudden clang of a street organ startled him. His eyes turned in the wonted direction—and instantly he sprang up. To clutch his hat, to rush from the room and from the house, occupied but a moment. There, walking away on the other side, was Eve. Her fawn-coloured mantle, ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing

... of all the praise you bestow on Messer Torello:" then, witting that it now only remained for him to tell, thus he began:—Gentle my ladies, this day, meseems, is dedicate to Kings and Soldans and folk of the like quality; wherefore, that I stray not too far from you, I am minded to tell you somewhat of a Marquis; certes, nought magnificent, but a piece of mad folly, albeit there came good thereof to him in the end. The which I counsel none to copy, for that great pity 'twas ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... when Walter, who was watching at a window, felt a curious sensation in the soles of his feet, and, startled, looked down to find that he was standing in a tiny pool of water. With a cry of alarm he sprang to where the big copper sat. A glance confirmed his worst fears; a stray bullet had torn a great hole in the vessel near the bottom, and of their precious store of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... had been enough excitement in the air to start with when the hijacker crowd boarded the rum-runner and joined issues with the crews of the two allied boats but when from out of the skies there descended a swooping monster, apparently about to fall upon them as might a stray meteor from unlimited space in the firmament, and that strange, racking pain gripped their eyes, nothing but panic could describe their condition with any ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... SEXTON, "that will be our last opportunity, and we must make the most of it. In meantime I think we've done pretty well. I'm especially pleased with you. You're a boy of great promise. If anything happened to me—a stray tack in the bench, or a pin maliciously directed, and the wind-bag were to collapse—you'd do capitally, till I ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various

... Kuno, you must know, sir, is one of the hunt servants, and a most ignorant, intemperate man: a right Gruenewalder, as we say in Gerolstein. We know him well, in this house; for he has come as far as here after his stray dogs; and I make all welcome, sir, without account of state or nation. And, indeed, between Gerolstein and Gruenewald the peace has held so long that the roads stand open like my door; and a man will make no more of the frontier than ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... stream. Well they might stand in quiet contentment: a king might have envied them their surroundings. Overhead rose a dozen or more of the tallest and finest elms we had ever seen, stretching their thick branches till they met and formed a canopy so dense that only a stray sunbeam or two pierced through and fell upon the smooth green sward. Peerless among them stood an elm of mighty girth and lofty height, its widely-stretching branches as large around, where they left the trunk, as a common tree, and clothed to the farthest twig with luxuriant ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... of a large house within the city. By the pool at Hebron were slain the murderers of Ishbosheth, and here Absalom assumed the throne. After his time we hear less of Hebron. Jerusalem overshadowed it in importance, yet we have one or two mentions. Rehoboam strengthened the town, and from a stray reference in Nehemiah, we gather that the place long continued to be called by its older name of Kiriath Arba. For a long period after the return from the Exile Hebron belonged to the Idumeans. It was the scene of warfare in the Maccabean period, and also during the rebellion against ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... conflagration. As soon as the tobacco has changed from a deep green to a light brown, it is removed on a wet day to the general barn. The same process of curing is going on in many barns on the same plantation, and occasionally one is burned down; for the tobacco is very inflammable, a stray spark from below being sufficient to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... his surname was Quixada or Quesada (for here there is some difference of opinion among the authors who write on the subject), although from reasonable conjectures it seems plain that he was called Quexana. This, however, is of but little importance to our tale; it will be enough not to stray a hair's breadth from the truth in the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... would never accept of stray hearts," said Godfrey. "See how her lip curls with pride ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... down and took up a brush. The picture was nearly done, but she found touches to be added here and there. There might be a stray lock—there, like that. And a little bit more shade under the chin, and the wistful droop of the mouth relieved, oh, a very little ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... in the clasp of the Grand Inquisitor himself, the venerable Pedro Arbuez d'Espila, who gazed at him with tearful eyes, like a good shepherd who had found his stray lamb. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... to Port Royal, whilst the rest of the fleet held their course towards Negril Bay. These two vessels accordingly set all sail, and pushed forward by themselves; the others keeping on at a more moderate rate, that none might stray from the convoy: for the West India seas at this time swarmed with American privateers, and it was of great consequence to keep the store-ships and heavy transports in the middle of ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... himself. Reflections like these were for men of middle years. The tide of his own youth flowed back upon him and the world, even under snow and with stray guns thundering behind him, was full of splendor. Moreover, there was the village of Chastel before him! Chastel! Chastel! He had never heard of it until two or three days ago, and yet it now loomed in his mind as ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... narratives from all parts within the geography of a diurnal, and eats as well upon the Russ and Polander as the English and Dutch. By this means his belly is provided for, and nothing lies upon his hands but his back, which takes other courses to maintain itself by weft and stray silver spoons, straggling hoods and scarfs, pimping, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... "She was killed. A stray shot, when she was giving tea to the men in the trenches.... It meant a lot... to all of us. The Englishman was killed too, so he was all right. I think Semyonov would have liked that same end; but he didn't get it, so he's remained desolate. Really desolate, in a way that only your thorough ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... salvable; those most corrupt and abandoned to wickedness, unbelief, and hardness, have yet a spark that may be kindled, a fount that may be made to gush, unto the illumination and purification of the whole being. A stray word, an unknown influence, a breath of the Spirit, is continually effecting such changes, such salvations. True, there are many fettered by vices, torn by sins, ploughed by the caustic shares of remorse, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... Sam. "I got scratched in the foot with a stray bullet, just as we went into the thicket there at the fort, and I can't walk. I am a little faint ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston

... gripped my hand, and tears were standing in his eyes. It is odd that suppressed laughter and expressed grief should both display the same token, is it not? I stole into her room. I dared not kiss her for fear of waking her; but a stray lock of her hair—you remember how long it was—fell over the pillow, nearly reaching to the floor. I pressed my lips against it, where it trailed over the bedstead, till they bled. I have it still upon my lips, the mingling of the cold iron and the warm, soft silken hair. He told ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... that even a poor monotonous chorister and grinder of music—in his niche—may be troubled with some stray sort of ambition, aspiration, restlessness, dissatisfaction, what shall ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... any moment a stray shot might ignite what little was left. Pointing the machine still more upward, he seized a bunch of loose lint, used to sop up recurring leaks here and there, and with a handy screw driver he managed to stop the rent in the metal with a few sharp ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry

... most striking contrast between this city and those of Europe, is perceived after sunset; scarcely a sound is heard; hardly a voice or a wheel breaks the stillness. The Streets are entirely dark, except where a stray lamp marks an hotel or the like; no shops are open, but those of the apothecary, and here and there a cook's shop; scarcely a step is heard, and for a note of music, or the sound of mirth, I listened in vain. In leaving the theatre, which I always did before the afterpiece, I saw not ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope

... that doubt of the world's one Passion, You for whose science the stars are a-stray, Hark—to their orderly thunder-tread! These, in the night, with the stars are marching One to the end of the world's one Passion! You that have taken their Master away, Where have you ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... three days have passed. The sun had been set for an hour, and the night is already rather dark notwithstanding the long twilight of these northern regions, for a blanket of vapour has gathered over the heaven, and a few stray drops have begun to fall from it. A thin wind now and then wakes, and gives a feeble puff, but seems immediately to change its mind and resolve not to blow, but let the rain come down. A drearier-looking spot for human abode it would be difficult to imagine, except it were ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... beaten their way through the narrow streets, and swept them clear of the foe, arrived here on that fateful day, the 14th September 1857, they found the palace deserted, except for a stray sentry, holding his position with sublime courage. The rest had fled,—thousands flying from hundreds,—and well they might, for the British troops were wrought up by the cruelties of the Sepoys to a sublime ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... special requirements, was not considered as any suitable subject for theory, but one which should be left to natural talents alone. By degrees, as War passed from the hand-to-hand encounters of the middle ages into a more regular and systematic form, stray reflections on this point also forced themselves into men's minds, but they mostly appeared only incidentally in memoirs and narratives, and ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... round Boonsborough when the settlers first arrived, but the slaughter had been so great that even after the first six weeks the hunters began to find some difficulty in getting any thing without going off some fifteen or twenty miles. However, stray buffaloes were still killed near the fort once or twice a week.[21] Calk in his journal quoted above, in the midst of entries about his domestic work—such as, on April 29th "we git our house kivered with bark and move our things into ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... little birds, by tempting them with dainty food upon her verandah; and it was a positive pleasure to her to watch their feast. She had a bag made, which was always filled with oats, to regale any stray horse or ass; and she has been seen surrounded by four goats, each standing on its hind legs, with its uplifted front feet resting on her, and all eagerly claiming the salt she had prepared for them. But her great delight was in dogs. She never forgot those sad ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... moral nature, suddenly arrests a little girl wandering in the woods in search of a butternut tree which lives like a hermit in the deep of the forest. It is a stray memory of herself in the long ago! It has wandered into her house of grief, and when it falls under the hand of the law she feels great guilt for having harbored it. "O, my poor, dear husband, have I so forgotten you?" she cries in mental sackcloth and ashes. ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... the eighteenth-century novelists. They have a shelf of their own in the case, and a corner of their own in my brain. For years you may never think of them, and then suddenly some stray word or train of thought leads straight to them, and you look at them and love them, and rejoice that you know them. But let us pass to something which may ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... lunch with us to-morrow," Mrs. Polkington said, as if stray guests to lunch were the most usual and convenient thing in the world. The Polkingtons kept up a good many of their farces in private life; most of them found it easier, as well as pleasanter, to do so. "The cold beef," Mrs. Polkington said, mentally reviewing ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad

... life of David's with his child-wife he had seen Mr. Peggotty. The brave old man had searched Europe for little Em'ly in vain; then he had come back to London, feeling somehow that some day she would stray there. He used to walk the streets by night, looking at every face he passed. In the room where he lived he kept a candle always lighted and one of her dresses hanging on a chair ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... proper cue from the former. Finally, never give an exhibition with the "cave" until you have watched the illusions from the front yourself; so that you can determine whether everything connected with the draping is right, or whether some stray bit of light reveals what you ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... sunshine of the old home! And how they all loved her, from the white-headed grandfather down to the little ploughboy, who brought her all the poor motherless or sick creatures he found on the farm, were it but a half-fledged bird or a stray kitten, certain of her thanks, and a sweet smile; and as to her three big brothers, who had such influence over them as little Susie? for even when they were disputing as to whose turn it was to ride Brown Bess (the joint property of the children), Susie was always ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer

... way up a long hill, in the edge of a bit of timber, nearly two miles from his home. The yard, beaten smooth and hard by many bare and childish feet, was separated from the timber by a rail fence but was left open in front to any stray horses or cattle that, wandering down the road, might be tempted to rest a while in the shade of a great tree that stood near the center of the little clearing. The stumps of the other forest beauties that had once, like this tree, tossed their branches ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright

... a youth of your abilities to be seeking a stray falcon? A throne is a richer prize. Betake yourself at ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike

... Irishman of that name. Rumold can be heard of in Mechlin, Albhuin in Saxony, Kilian in Bavaria, Fursey in Peronne, and in far Tarentum the traveller will find more than one trace of the reformer of that city—the Irishman, St. Cathaldus. We cannot suppose that any man will stray from Stackallen, or Maynooth at least, without keeping this purpose in mind, nor would it misbecome a divine from that Trinity College of which ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... from his handsome face and his tall figure was stooped with exhaustion. He raised one hand and brushed back a stray lock from his forehead, across which a ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon

... Has she been going about in society, making investigations into the rudiments of matrimony, during my last cruise? And would you mind telling me if any young men have been giving her lessons in love-affairs? John Gayther, have you seen any stray lovers prowling about your garden ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... stray, Thither the brook pursues its way, And tinkling rill, There all are equal; side by side The poor man and the son of pride ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... glowed in the young man's eyes as he spoke, and for the nonce lit up the dogged hardness of his face. So might the stolid purple visage of some ancestral Cross have become illumined, over his heavy beef and tubs of ale, at the stray thought of spearing a boar at bay, or roasting ducats out of a Jew. The thick rank blood of centuries of gluttonous, hunting, marauding progenitors, men whose sum of delights lay in working the violent death of some creature—wild beast or human, it mattered ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... a true story of a wild stray cat which I hope may interest your readers. Some years ago I lived with my parents (my father being a retired manufacturer of artificial eyes) on the banks of the river Dodder, near Dundrum. In the back-garden there ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various

... I have said, a noteworthy figure in history. He would be a remarkable figure in any land; but for those who are not acquainted with Russia, the rise of a man born a peasant, educated solely by his own efforts on stray newspapers and books which fell in his way in his schoolless village, and absolutely lacking in money or influence, ("svyazi"—connections, is the Russian version of "pull,") to the position of multi-millionaire and co-worker with the Emperor, is amazing almost ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... forest ground which arose behind it in shaggy majesty. Into this romantic region the father and daughter proceeded, arm in arm, by a noble avenue overarched by embowering elms, beneath which groups of the fallow-deer were seen to stray in distant perspective. As they paced slowly on, admiring the different points of view, for which Sir William Ashton, notwithstanding the nature of his usual avocations, had considerable taste and feeling, they were overtaken ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... brandy-and-water would bring him round. The second glass would make him the fondest husband living; but the third would restore to him the memory of all his wrongs, and give him courage against his wife or all the world,—even to the detriment of the furniture around him, should a stray poker chance to meet his hand. All these peculiarities of his character were not, however, known to Cradell; and when our friend saw him enter the drawing-room with his wife on his ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... that old witch?" said he to the sparrows, who were picking up stray bits of grain in the yard. "With her evil tongue she is parting my master's daughter and the finest young fellow in the country-side. She puts lies and truth together, with more skill than you patch moss and feathers to build ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... mirth that with morn was begun, Nor dreaded the dark and the dew? Some sweet thieves have made off with our fun! Would our paddles were free to pursue! Ah, could we but catch them anew, Clip their wings, forbid them to stray, Then more blithely we'd sing than we do— Many Happy Returns of ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts

... virility. When she walked there was an imperious tilt to her head; but no matter how carefully planned her toilette, or how cleverly her coiffure might have been arranged by her maid, there was nearly always some stray bit of colour or carelessly chosen flower that combined with her nature in a suggestion of outlawry: the same instinct of rebellion that had dominated her brother Dick during their childhood. Inside the house she would sometimes ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... woody shore, What as the writing of his deity He knew, as soon as he had marked the lore. This was a place of those described by me, Whither oft-times, attended by Medore, From the near shepherd's cot had wont to stray The beauteous ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... the arrogance of the acclaimed beauty, walked first, wearing a tight-fitting gown with insertions of fishnet, evidently copied from some stray fashion-book. She wore it as her only garment, and through the wide meshes of the novel lace appeared her skin, of the tint of the fresh-cooked breadfruit. She passed us with a coquettish toss of her shapely head and took her place ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... Butler back to me; I stray and lapse alone! If this be freedom, to be free Were something best unknown. He used to look so grand and grave— So sad when I was slack; 'Twas difficult to misbehave— Oh, bring ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various

... in the bazaar, yea, even at noon and at sunset. Perchance one evening, lured by the tale of the riches of the house of Zulannah, might not her feet stray within the portals at the setting of the sun. And behold, the key of the great door is ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... outlines in chalk. The daylight scarcely reached the remoter angles and corners of the vast room; they were as dark as night, but the silver ornamented breastplate of a Reiter's corselet, that hung upon the wall, attracted a stray gleam to its dim abiding-place among the brown shadows; or a shaft of light shot across the carved and glistening surface of an antique sideboard covered with curious silver-plate, or struck out a line of glittering ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac

... little foothold to one who would climb from the water to firm land. Here and there the caves break the even surface of the rocks, and in yet other places great masses jut out in fantastic shapes above the water. It is always dark and cool in the Gorge, for the sun never penetrates there excepting in stray beams; a pleasant place of a hot summer's day, with an expert oarsman and coxswain to make a safe passage, but full of peril to a young girl alone in ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin

... and everywhere—now setting Mrs. Richardson at ease, now carrying little Mercy to look at the band, now conveying away Salome when frightened, now finding a mother for a village child taken with a sobbing fit of shyness, now conducting a stray schoolboy to his companions, now running up for a few gay words to her old uncle, to make sure that he was neither chilly nor tired. How pleasant it was to her to mingle with group after group of people, and hear from one and another how handsome and how happy Lord Fitzjocelyn looked, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... whom the care of a congregation is entrusted, is considered as the shepherd of a flock, as the teacher of a school, as the father of a family. As a shepherd, tending not his own sheep but those of his master, he is answerable for those that stray, and that lose themselves by straying. But no man can be answerable for losses which he has not power to prevent, or for vagrancy which he has not ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... lately taken a coadjutor worthy of himself, being another stray sheep that has returned to the village fold. This is no other than the son of the musical tailor, who had bestowed some cost upon his education, hoping to see him one day arrive at the dignity of an exciseman, or at least of a parish clerk. The lad grew up, however, as idle and musical as his ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... hundred men. It was not exactly a military expedition. To the sailors of each ship were assigned certain shares of the general profits, and as it was obvious that more money was likely to be gained by trade with the natives, or by the capture of such stray carracks and other, merchantmen of the enemy as were frequently to be met in these regions, the men were not particularly eager to take part in sieges of towns or battles with cruisers. Matelieff, however, had sufficient influence over his comrades ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... his grand-daughter's studio that afternoon, that stray sheep Mr. Purcey would have been, perhaps, the only one whose judgments he would have considered sound. No one had laid up a competence for Mr. Purcey, who had been in business from ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... for these agitations. The constitution of her mind was overset altogether. The moment that suspicion and distrust came in there was no further strength in her. She was lying not thinking so much as remembering stray words and looks which drifted across her memory as across a dim mirror, with a meaning in them which she did not grasp. She was not clever. She could not put this and that together with the dolorous skill which some women ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... foe, save the wild boar and a stray wolf, although I have tramped the forest from the rising to the setting ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... Margate? There's only one thing that rather adulterates the felicity—a drop of gall in the cup of mead!—and that is the horrid sea-sickness! learnedly called nostalgia; but call it by any name you please, like a stray dog, it ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... was accustomed to exhibit himself to the admiring gaze of his subjects, and to bestow upon them the unspeakable privilege of a stray beam from the "son of France." Never had he shed his rays upon a more numerous or more magnificent concourse than the one assembled in the Pre aux Clercs; for the Duchess de Bouillon had just entered with her ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... or woman can tell any tidings of a horse with four feet, two ears, that did stray about the seventh hour, three minutes in ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... soul: to you a kiss; In troth I am sorry I have stray'd amiss; To whom shall I be thankful? all silent? None speak? whist! why then to God, That gives men comfort as he gives his rod; Your portions I'll see paid, and I will love you, You three I'll live withal, my soul shall love you! You are an honest servant, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... Ford's residence. What's that— you have a stray white horse? Oh, Will, maybe it's Prince!" and she turned eagerly to her brother. "A man from Randall's livery stable is on the wire. He says they have a white horse that was just brought in. A farmer says he found him wandering about ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope

... dazzled eyes could not see the radiant shapes which showed themselves; the King's dulled ears could not hear the sounds which played about them. It seemed as though his body were dissolving in confusion; his thoughts began to stray, and consciousness threatened to leave him. So he begged the magician to return. The magician put his spell upon him, and it seemed to the King as though he ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... muscular Phillip bowed slightly, as if excusing himself, and submissively and silently stepped over to the next window, and, carefully looking at the Princess, so arranged the curtain that no stray ray should fall on her. It was again unsatisfactory, and again the exhausted Princess was obliged to interrupt her conversation about mysticism and correct the unintelligent Phillip, who was pitilessly tormenting her. For a ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... the scamp of the village come to see you; keep him here till I come back. I'm after some stray sheep'; and shutting the door with a ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre

... course, in such a republic, art and literature, as the highest manifestation of mind, would have the supreme direction. Do you smile, reader? I smile now; but it was serious earnest with me then. It is unnecessary to say more on this point. I have said so much to render intelligible the stray link of communion which riveted the charm of my new acquaintance's conversation; there was both agreement enough and difference enough in our views to render our ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... part of the Christmas vacation, and found him without tangible disease, but very weak and ailing: ill-health and anxiety, however, neither then nor at any time diminished his charm as a companion. He left Mentone to meet me at the old town of Monaco, where we spent a few days and from whence these stray notes of nature and human nature ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and our cold, clammy clothes. Water trickles down the tent poles and only forms icicles in contact with the snow floor. The warmth of our bodies has formed a snow bath in the floor for each of us to lie in. This is a nice little catchwater for stray streams to run into before they freeze. This they cannot do while a warm human lies there, so they remain liquid and the accommodating bag mops them up. When we go out to do the duties of life, fill the cooker, etc., for the next meal, ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... dark, and lest they should stray too far inland Mae was to give signals on her police whistle. Three short and two long would mean "hurry back." Occasionally they stopped to listen ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis



Words linked to "Stray" :   gad, sporadic, domesticated animal, domestic animal, jazz around, go, locomote, tell, gallivant, travel, maunder, lost, move



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