[
UK
/stɹˈeɪ/
]
[ US /ˈstɹeɪ/ ]
[ US /ˈstɹeɪ/ ]
VERB
-
lose clarity or turn aside especially from the main subject of attention or course of argument in writing, thinking, or speaking
Don't digress when you give a lecture
her mind wanders
She always digresses when telling a story -
wander from a direct course or at random
The child strayed from the path and her parents lost sight of her
don't drift from the set course -
move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment
The cattle roam across the prairie
They rolled from town to town
The gypsies roamed the woods
roving vagabonds
the laborers drift from one town to the next
the wandering Jew
ADJECTIVE
-
(of an animal) having no home or having wandered away from home
a stray calf
a stray dog -
not close together in time
a few stray crumbs
isolated instances of rebellion
NOUN
- an animal that has strayed (especially a domestic animal)
How To Use stray In A Sentence
- Halpern kept his arms crossed and eyes forward, while Ren was grinning and tucking a few stray hairs up under a mesh caul.
- She was so popular with my friends and all the strays who freeloaded at our “house” that she began to have her own collection of adopted sons and daughters I never knew about. One From The Hart
- Helping him to do so, meanwhile, is Proteus' feisty betrothed, Marina, who gives as good as she gets in helping to ensure Sinbad doesn't stray from his path, while winning over the respect of his crew.
- THERE have been many reports about the numbers of stray and abandoned animals in rescue centres. The Sun
- But their recording finds them in less than top form, and Solti sometimes leads them astray.
- Here and there a mother turned her head to call back anxiously for the bleating lambkin lost behind the white curtain; and, dim and grotesque, the awkward strayling would come gamboling into sight. Virginia: the Old Dominion
- This regress is signalled not only by increases in mental confusion but by typography less and less coherent, the type straying over the page, and with some pages simply blank.
- Tourists often get lost and stray into dangerous areas.
- According to the Civil Aviation Authority, he strayed into a two-mile wide no-fly zone over Heysham nuclear power station.
- When Glenn McGrath ricked his ankle while stepping on a stray cherry in Australia's pre-match warm-up, the façade of fear that had been erected during the Lord's debacle was torn down in an instant.