- to deviate from the direct course, leave the proper place, or go beyond the proper limits, especially without a fixed course or purpose: to stray from the main road.
- to wander; roam: I strayed through the maze of the forest.
- to go astray; deviate, as from a moral, religious, or philosophical course: to stray from the teachings of the church.
- to digress or become distracted: to stray from the main topic.
- a domestic animal found wandering at large or without an owner: The humane society traps strays, spays or neuters them, and returns them to the feral colony in which they were found.
- any person or animal who is homeless or friendless: For a popular girl, she has the oddest misfit friends—her mom says she just can’t help but collect strays.
- a person or animal that strays: the strays of a flock.
- static.
- straying or having strayed, as a domestic animal.
- found or occurring apart from others or as an isolated or casual instance; incidental or occasional.
- undesired: stray capacitance.
- to wander away, as from the correct path or from a given area
- to wander haphazardly
- to digress from the point, lose concentration, etc
- to deviate from certain moral standards
- a domestic animal, fowl, etc, that has wandered away from its place of keeping and is lost
- (as modifier)
- a lost or homeless person, esp a child
- an isolated or random occurrence, specimen, etc, that is out of place or outside the usual pattern
- scattered, random, or haphazard
