[Partly an aphetic variant of ASTRAY (cf. LONE a. from ALONE); partly attrib. use of STRAY sb.]
1. Of an animal: That has wandered from confinement or control and goes free; that has straggled from a flock; of a domestic animal, etc., that has become homeless or ownerless. † Also rarely of a person.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 663. His seruants seeing a stray Sow come among them, the owner whereof they did not know, presently they slew her.
1634. Milton, Comus, 315. If your stray attendance [= attendants] be yet lodg’d, Or shroud within these limits. Ibid. (1671), P. R., I. 315. An aged man … Following … the quest of some stray Ewe.
1832. Ht. Martineau, Life in Wilds, v. 58. He saw a herd of buffaloes…. Arnall determined that if a stray one came within shot, he would take aim at it.
1875. Maine, Hist. Inst., ix. 261. The right of the lawful possessor of land to … impound stray beasts which are damaging his crops.
1908. [Miss E. Fowler], Betw. Trent & Ancholme, 143. A little stray lamb who left the fold.
b. fig.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, XVIII. viii. Whether the good-natured world will suffer such a stray-sheep to return to the road of virtue.
1862. Goulburn, Personal Relig., IV. v. (1873), 287. To seek the stray sheep in the wilderness of the world.
2. Of a cable: Loose, slack. Cf. STRAY sb. 7 and STRAY-LINE.
1791. Smeaton, Edystone L., § 128. Hill’s company were employed on board the buss, heaving in the stray cable [etc.].
3. Of a person or thing: Separated from the main body; occurring away from the regular course or habitat: isolated.
1796–1842. Wordsw., Borderers, II. 766. I was going To waken our stray Baron.
a. 1834. Newman, Par. Serm. (1836), III. xxii. 360. In the cavern, or the desert, or the mountain, where God’s stray servants lived.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. V. vi. Their infinite hum waxing ever louder, into imprecations, perhaps into crackle of stray musketry.
1849. W. S. Mayo, Kaloolah, vii. (1850), 65. The little medical knowledge that I had picked up by stray reading.
1867. H. Latham, Black & White, 22. In one of the corridors we fell in with a stray Professor, who … showed us over the whole building.
1872. Jenkinson, Guide Eng. Lakes (1879), 318. The desolate grandeur of the scenery which there meets the eye of the stray visitor.
1873. Tristram, Moab, iii. 39. Not even a stray salsola or salicornia to relieve the flat sand beds.
1907. J. A. Hodges, Elem. Photogr. (ed. 6), 33. The detection of stray beams of light coming from chinks and cracks in the door.
† 4. Strolling, vagrant. Obs. rare.
1620. in Southampton Court Leet Rec. (1907), I. 578. The spoyle therof is Cheifelie occasioned by the sufferinge of Straye players to acte their enterludes ther.
5. Electr. (See quots.)
1893. Sloane, Electr. Dict., Stray Field. In a dynamo or motor the portion of the field whose lines of force are not cut by the armature windings. Ibid., Stray Power. The proportion of the energy wasted in driving a dynamo, lost through friction and other hurtful resistances.
