[f. VAGRANT a.: -ANCY.]
1. fig. The action or fact of wandering or digressing in mind, opinion, thought, etc.; an instance of this. (Cf. 3.)
1642. H. More, Song of Soul, II. iii. III. lxxiii. Curious men will judge’t a vagrancy To start thus from my scope.
1778. Johnson, in Boswell (1831), IV. 176. Of this vacillation and vagrancy of mind, I impute a great part to a fortuitous and unsettled life.
1808. Han. More, Cœlebs, II. 200. Poetry … has of late too much degenerated into personal satire,… and caricature;… it has exhibited the vagrancies of genius, without the inspiration.
1853. G. Johnston, Nat. Hist. E. Bord., I. 236. We can all of us apprehend the pretty vagrancy of the fancy.
1861. Tulloch, Eng. Purit., ii. 291. The workings of conscience helped to check the vagrancies of the heart.
2. The state, condition, or action of roaming abroad or wandering about from place to place.
a. 1677. Barrow, Serm., iv. Wks. 1686, III. 42. Therefore did he spend his days in continual labour, in restless travel, in endless vagrancy, going about doing good. Ibid., v. 57. Moses did not lose his affection towards his Countreymen, because he was by one of them threatned away into banishment and vagrancy.
1776. Johnson, in Boswell (Oxf. ed.), II. 40. As a shepherd … he is answerable for those that stray…. But no man can be answerable … for vagrancy which he has not authority to restrain.
1822–56. De Quincey, Conf., Wks. 1862, I. 131. Happier life I cannot imagine than this vagrancy, if the weather were but tolerable, through endless successions of changing beauty.
1829. Lytton, Devereux, I. i. Before terminating for ever his vagrancies.
1889. B. Harte, Cressy, i. It had been the habit of the master to utilize these preliminary vagrancies of his little flock.
transf. 1834. Harper’s Mag., Dec., 76/2. I was struck by the wild untutored vagrancy of every growing thing.
b. spec. Idle wandering with no settled habitation, occupation, or obvious means of support; conduct, life or practices characteristic of vagrants or idle beggars.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Vagrancy, a vagrant, disorderly, or ill Course of Life.
a. 1792. Burke, Sk. Negro Code, Wks. (Bohn), V. 544. He shall by office prosecute them for the offences of idleness…, gaming, or vagrancy.
1857. Toulmin Smith, Parish, 145. Vagrancy had thus everywhere a colourable excuse given to it, and soon largely increased.
1876. J. Weiss, Wit, Hum. & Shaks., iv. 141. He ought to be taken up for vagrancy as having no visible means of support.
attrib. 1901. Scribner’s Mag., April, 406/1. The sleepy unwary are lucky if they escape the Island on a vagrancy commitment.
3. An instance or occasion of wandering or roaming; a rambling journey; a straying.
1763. Ld. Hardwicke, in Life (1847), III. xv. 381. The runaways need not shorten their vagrancy on that account.
1799. Strutt, Dress & Habits, II. 318. It was evidently his intention to hold up these idle vagrancies to ridicule.
