[f. STRAY v.2 + -ING1.] The action of the verb, in various senses; also, an instance of this.
1548. Elyot’s Dict., Erratio, a goyng out of the waie, a wandryng, a straiyng abrode, a rouyng.
1583. Golding, Calvin on Deut., viii. 47. What els are the wais of the world but straiings, so as euery man gaddes in and out when they once turne their backes vpon God.
1633. Sanderson, Serm. Ad Aulam, ii. (1681), 22. Those strayings also and outsteppings, whereof Gods faithfullest servants are now and then guilty.
1643. Rous, Ps. xlv. 18 (1646), 76. Our heart’s not turn’d back, from thy way, our steps no straying made.
1786. G. Frazer, Dove’s Flight, 39. Observe the pidgeon in her straying from the flock.
1820. Keats, Isabella, xviii. How could they find out in Lorenzo’s eye A straying from his toil?
a. 1857. H. Bonar, Hymns of faith & Hope, 33. Cease, my soul, thy strayings!
1876. M. Arnold, Lit. & Dogma, 244. Those learned inquirers … who were so busy about the strayings of Ulysses, so inattentive to their own.
1889. H. E. Handerson, trans. Baas’ Hist. Med., 495, note. Patin was the first who observed a case of tubal pregnancy, ascribing it to a straying of the ovum.
† b. Gerundially in to go a-straying. Obs. rare–1.
a. 1586. Sidney, Ps. xiv. 3. And loe, he findes that all a straying went.
