Now rare and arch. [Back-formation from WAYFARING sb.] intr. To journey or travel, esp. on foot. Also to wayfare it.
1547. Act 1 Edw. VI., c. 3 § 3. Divers wemen and men goeth on begging wayefaring.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, xxiv. (1617), 411. Abraham, Isaac and Iacob wayfared from place to place vpon the earth.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., V. xi. 37. There as he traueld by the way, he met An aged wight, wayfaring all alone.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 474. A certaine Laconian as he way-fared, came unto a place where there dwelt an olde friend and host of his.
1818. Keats, Lett., Wks. 1889, III. 142. I hope soon to be writing you about the things of the north, purposing to wayfare all over those parts.
1850. Fraser’s Mag., XLII. 446. Shoals of people … wayfared it up the Rhine.
1898. T. Hardy, Wessex Poems, 135. Along through the Stour-bordered Forum, Where Legions had wayfared.
b. fig. and in fig. context.
1535. Goodly Primer, Commendations, Ps. cxix. Zaïn, Whilst I here wayfared a stranger.
1578. Bk. Chr. Prayers, 12. Most louing Father,… harken to the prayers of thy seruants, yet wayfaring here on earth.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 141. Not jading it in the great road of bare motion, which other stirr’d bodies are wayfaring in.
1875. Manning, Mission Holy Ghost, i. 23. That he is but a stranger wayfaring upon earth.
