Also 5 voiage, 5–6 vyage, 9 dial. v’yage, Sc. vaeg. [ad. F. voyager, † voiager (15th c.), or f. VOYAGE sb.]
1. intr. To journey by land; to travel. Now rare.
c. 1477. Caxton, Jason, 26. His legges were Royde like a voyager that had alle the day to fore haue voiaged or goon a Iourney. Ibid. (1490), Eneydos, xv. 57. And in vyagynge thrughe the landes, [fame] hideth her hede bytwyx the clowdes.
1642. Milton, Apol. Smect., viii. 42. Although my life hath not bin unexpensive in learning, and voyaging about.
1673. Dryden, Marr. à la Mode, II. i. A gentleman, sir,… who has haunted the best conversations, and who, in short, has voyaged.
1778. Foote, Trip to Calais, I. Wks. 1799, II. 344. Nothing can be so vulgar in France, as voyaging about with one’s wife.
1898. C. Lee, Paul Carah, ii. 30. Half over the States I’ve been, an’ into Canady—v’yaged thousands o’ miles, ’a b’lieve.
† 2. To carry out an enterprise. Obs.–1
c. 1500. Melusine, 171. The maister [of Rhodes] recounted … all thauentures that had happed to them. ‘By my feyth’ said the kyng, ‘ye haue worthyly vyaged.
3. To go by sea; to sail or cruise; to make a voyage or voyages. Also in fig. context.
1604. E. G[rimstone], D’Acosta’s Hist. Indies, IV. xxxi. 294. All that have voyaged thither, have been curious to carry seedes of all sorts, and all have grown.
1624. Donne, Ess. Div. (1651), 37. Men which seek God by reason … are like Mariners which voyaged before the invention of the Compass.
1700. Pomfret, Reason, 133. Oh! what an ocean must be voyag’d o’er, To gain a prospect of the shining shore!
1725. Pope, Odyss., I. 340. Voyaging to learn the direful art To taint with deadly drugs the barbed dart.
1779. Forrest, Voy. N. Guinea, 137. The Dutch ships, voyaging between New Guinea and Aroo,… frequently see flocks of birds of Paradise.
1819. Byron, Juan, II. xliii. He was a man of years, And long had voyaged through many a stormy sea.
1846. Hawthorne, Mosses, II. viii. (1864), 171. Having voyaged across the Atlantic for that sole purpose.
1875. Chambers’ Jrnl., 2 Jan., 7. More than seventy merchant-ships, voyaging in almost every ocean.
fig. 1805. Wordsw., Prelude, III. 63. His … silent face, The marble index of a mind for ever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.
1819. Shelley, Lett., Pr. Wks. 1888, II. 305. I have lately been voyaging in a sea without any pilot.
a. 1873. Lytton, Pausanias, III. i. (1876), 220. Voyagers that never voyaged thither save in song.
1894. H. Drummond, Ascent Man, 300. It is not for food that the plant-world voyages into foreign spheres, but to perfect the supremer labour of life.
b. transf. Of things: To move through the water or air. Also fig.
1834. H. Miller, Scenes & Leg., xvi. (1850), 243. In Britain … it [the cholera] voyaged along the coasts with the speed of the trading vessels.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xliii. (1856), 402. We could see them many fathoms below, voyaging again to the upper world.
a. 1864. Hawthorne, Amer. Note-Bks. (1879), I. 42. A log comes floating on,… having voyaged … hundreds of miles.
1878. Stevenson, Inland Voy., 178. Grand clouds still voyaged in the sky.
4. trans. To cross or travel over; to traverse; to sail over or on. Also fig.
1667. Milton, P. L., X. 471. Long were to tell What I have don, what sufferd, with what paine Voyag’d th’ unreal, vast, unbounded deep Of horrible confusion.
1725. Pope, Odyss., V. 361. Him, thus voyaging the deeps below, From far … The King of Ocean saw.
1793. Coleridge, Lines Autumnal Even., 44. O heed the spell, and hither wing your way, Like far-off music, voyaging the breeze!
1849. J. Wilson, in Blackw. Mag., LXVI. 259. Last time we voyaged the Loch you said a few words.
1890. Century Mag., Aug., 636/1. The Rhône of to-day must be something like the Rhine of fifty years ago, though much less voyaged now than that was then.
