vagabond

Origin:
1400–50; late Middle English vagabound (< Old French vagabond) < Late Latin vagābundus wandering, vagrant, equivalent to Latin vagā(rī) to wander + -bundus adj. suffix

Related forms

vag·a·bond·ish, adjective

Synonyms
7. hobo, loafer. See vagrant. 8. knave, idler.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Link To vagabond

Collins

World English Dictionary

vagabond (ˈvæɡəˌbɒnd)

—n
1.	a person with no fixed home
2.	an idle wandering beggar or thief
3.	(modifier) of or like a vagabond; shiftless or idle

[C15: from Latin vagābundus wandering, from vagārī to roam, from vagusvague]

'vagabondage

—n

'vagabondish

—*adj*

'vagabondism

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

vagabond

early 15c. (earlier vacabond, c.1400), from M.Fr. vagabonde, from L.L. vagabundus "wandering, strolling about," from L. vagari "wander" (from vagus "wandering, undecided;" see vague) + gerundive suffix -bundus. The noun is first recorded late 15c.

Easton

Bible Dictionary

Vagabond definition

from Lat. vagabundus, "a wanderer," "a fugitive;" not used opprobriously (Gen. 4:12, R.V., "wanderer;" Ps. 109:10; Acts 19:13, R.V., "strolling").

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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Example sentences

Then, after showing some power as a vagabond starter and pinch-hitter the first two months, he came through in a real emergency.

The intellect is vagabond, and the universal system of education fosters restlessness.

The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness.

Vagabond contenders, with virtually no time anywhere for practice.

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Matching Quote

"The field maneuvers may be different from those in Holmes's day, and the villain is more socially mobile, but since Sir Arthur we have not changed the three essential ingredients of the private eye. He must be a bachelor, with the bachelor's harum-scarum availability at all hours (William Powell's marriage to Myrna "Nora" Loy, a wistful concession to the family trade, fooled nobody). He must have an inconspicuous fund of curious knowledge, which in the end is always crucially relevant. He must pity the official guardians of the law. Of course, the twentieth century has grafted some interesting personality changes on the original. Holmes was an eccentric in the Victorian sense, a man with queer hobbies—cocaine was lamentable but pardonably melodramatic—whose social code was essentially that of the ruling classes. He was, in a way, the avenging squire of the underworld ready to administer a horsewhipping to the outcasts who were never privileged by birth to receive it from their fathers. Bogart is a displaced person whose present respectability is uncertain, a classless but well-contained vagabond who is not going to be questioned about where he came from or where he is going. ("I came to Casablanca for the waters." "But there are no waters in Casablanca." "I was misinformed.")"

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