Vagabond | Webster's Dictionary (1865)

Vāg'a-bōnd, a.

adjective

a. [Fr. vagabond, Pr. vagabon, It. vagabondo, Sp. & Pg. vagabundo, Lat. vagabundus, from vagari, to stroll about, from vagus, strolling.]

Sense 1. Floating about without any certain direction; driven to and fro. “Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream.” Shak.

To heaven their prayers Flew up, nor missed the way by envious winds Blown vagabond or frustrate. Milton.

Sense 2. Moving from place to place without any settled habitation; wandering. “Vagabond exile.” Shak.

Vāg'a-bōnd, n.

noun

n. [See supra.] One who wanders from town to town or place to place, having no certain dwelling, or not abiding in it, and usually without the means of honest livelihood; a vagrant.

Reduced, like Hannibal, to seek relief From court to court, and wander up and down, A vagabond in Afric. Addison.

☞ A vagabond is said to be a person who, without traveling in quest of a domicile, has really and truly no certain domicile at all. Phillimore. In English and American law, vagabond is always used in a 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 ale-houses, 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. Burrill. Bouvier.

Vāg'a-bōnd, v. i.

verbintransitive

v. i. To play the vagabond; to wander; to stroll. [Obs.]