[a. AF. estray, vbl. sb. (taken concr.) f. estraier to stray: see ASTRAY.]
A. sb. Law. A stray animal; ‘any beast not wild, found within any Lordship, and not owned by any man’ (Cowell).
[1292. Britton, I. xviii. § 3. Weyf ou estray nent chalengez de eynz le an et le jour si soit al seignur de la fraunchise.]
1594. West, Symbol., II. Chancerie, § 37. The like is it of an Estray or a Deodand.
c. 1640. J. Smyth, Lives Berkeleys (1883), I. 334. All such Estrays and Cumelings as … should be taken or found upon the Abbots demesnes.
1714. Scroggs, Courts-leet (ed. 3), 105. The Estray shall be proclaimed in the two next Market Towns.
1765. Blackstone, Comm., I. 298. Any beast may be an estray, that is by nature tame or reclaimable.
1776. in Stonehouse, Axholme (1839), 145. The Lord’s Bailiff, or receiver of estrays.
1850. Longf., By Fireside, Pegasus in Pound, vi. The … village crier … proclaiming there was an estray to sell.
b. transf.
1581. Lambarde, Eiren. (1602), 589. Many things haue escaped me vnseen … and it shall not bee harde for him that meeteth with such Estrais to take and lodge them in their right Titles here.
1741. Richardson, Pamela (1824), I. lxxvii. 432. This happy estray, thus restored, begs leave by me to acknowledge its lovely owner.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxxviii. (1856), 350. This poor little wanderer [a solitary snow-bunting] was an estray from his fellows.
1881. E. C. Stedman, in Scribn. Mag., Oct., 817/2. How he seizes on some promising estray…!
B. adj. Of an animal: That is astray. rare.
1865. Nichols, Britton, I. 216. Things found, which do not belong to anybody, as wreck of sea, beasts estray [orig. estravagauntes] rabbits, hares [etc.].
