wayward
turned or turning away from what is right or proper; willful; disobedient: a wayward son; wayward behavior.
swayed or prompted by caprice; capricious: a wayward impulse; to be wayward in one's affections.
turning or changing irregularly; irregular: a wayward breeze.
Origin of wayward
1synonym study For wayward
Other words for wayward
Other words from wayward
- way·ward·ly, adverb
- way·ward·ness, noun
- un·way·ward, adjective
Words Nearby wayward
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use wayward in a sentence
Finau won that event Monday on the first playoff hole when Cameron Smith was undone by a wayward drive.
With the BMW Championship (and FedEx Cup playoffs), the PGA Tour is finally back in Maryland | Gene Wang | August 24, 2021 | Washington PostFor a start, they only detected errors and didn’t actually test out the process for correcting wayward qubits.
Google Gets One Step Closer to Error-Corrected Quantum Computing | Edd Gent | July 19, 2021 | Singularity HubIn the future, the astronomers hope to understand how these wayward worlds acquired their odd orbits.
Most planets on tilted orbits pass over the poles of their suns | Ken Croswell | June 14, 2021 | Science NewsI do not wish to be put through any wayward maneuvering, and I am certainly not interested in a romantic relationship with you.
Miss Manners: Teacher-turned-colleague is creepy, unprofessional | Judith Martin, Nicholas Martin, Jacobina Martin | June 4, 2021 | Washington PostStill, Suggs would be a dream addition for a wayward franchise that hasn’t won a playoff series since 2004 and has struggled to develop a young core in recent years.
It was an intimate and somber plea, like a parent opening an intervention with a wayward child.
How about the man who created her—a lover of women who lived with a wife, his lover, their children, and a wayward librarian?
Wonder Woman’s Creation Story Is Wilder Than You Could Ever Imagine | Tom Arnold-Forster | November 3, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThe story of a wayward anesthesia trainee who took a near fatal dose of fentanyl hit the news this week.
Not to worry, Bob, those wayward thoughts are portals of discovery for an interviewer.
A regal few were spiritual counselors, like Weberman, bringing wayward kids and teens back from the brink of ruined lives.
How One Sex Abuse Case Tore Apart the Williamsburg Hasidim | Allison Yarrow | August 8, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTBut agitation unlocks wayward fancies and sends them scurrying inopportunely across the very foreground of the mind.
Ancestors | Gertrude AthertonMariamne had grown more fantastic, and capricious, and wayward than ever.
A large stone set in a secure place surely is a better boundary than a wayward stream whose course is changed by every freshet.
Putnam's Handy Law Book for the Layman | Albert Sidney BollesObserve the wayward boy whose chief inheritance is a wild, wilful nature.
The value of a praying mother | Isabel C. ByrumFrom this companionship a group of wayward children may be formed.
Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents | Oswald Chettle Mazengarb et al.
British Dictionary definitions for wayward
/ (ˈweɪwəd) /
wanting to have one's own way regardless of the wishes or good of others
capricious, erratic, or unpredictable
Origin of wayward
1Derived forms of wayward
- waywardly, adverb
- waywardness, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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