| 释义 |
▪ I. vagrant, n. and a.|ˈveɪgrənt|
Forms: α. 5–6 vagaraunt(e, 6–7 vagarant, 6 -ent. β. 6– vagrant, 7 vag'rant.
[Late ME. vagraunt, vagaraunt, perh. an alteration of earlier AF. wakerant (wacrant, walcrant), through association with L. vagārī: cf. vagabond. The AF. word is employed in the sense of ‘vagrant’ in enactments of the 14th cent.]
A. n.
1. One of a class of persons who having no settled home or regular work wander from place to place, and maintain themselves by begging or in some other disreputable or dishonest way; an itinerant beggar, idle loafer, or tramp.
Vagrants have been the subject of many legal enactments, and by the Act 5 Geo. IV, c. 83 (the Vagrancy Act of 1824, now amended), they were divided into ‘idle and disorderly persons, rogues and vagabonds, incorrigible rogues and other vagrants’.
α1444Rolls of Parlt. V. 113/1 Alle Statutes of Laborers,..Vitaillers, Servauntz and Vagarauntz, afore this tyme made. 1583Stubbes Anat. Abus. ii. (1882) 75 They runne roging like vagarents vp and downe the countries like maisterlesse men. 1598R. Barckley Felic. Man (1631) 378 [Seamen] are alwaies as vagarants and in continuall exile.
β1452in Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. Var. Coll. IV. 201 All manere vagraunts, vacabunds and beggers begging oute of the hundred wheras they duelle. 1547Act 1 Edw. VI, c. 3 §6 Yf it shall appear..suche man..to have been a vagraunte and vacabound or ydle parsone. 1606Warner Alb. Eng. xiv. xci. 367 Lest his Bagpipe, Sheephooke, Skrip, and Bottell..By Vagrants, (more then many now) might suffer of their stealth. 1698Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 392 These then are Vagrants, while the Husbandman fixes himself in the Villages. 1725Pope Odyss. xi. 452 Vagrants who on falsehood live, Skill'd in smooth tales, and artful to deceive. 1781Gibbon Decl. & F. xvii. (1787) II. 34 The præfect, who seemed to have been designed as a terror only to slaves and vagrants. 1832H. Martineau Ireland 119 The listless or bold expression which characterises vagrants. 1856Froude Hist. Eng. (1858) I. i. 75 For the able-bodied vagrant, it is well known that the old English laws had no mercy. 1884Pae Eustace 57 If you dare to trespass on my grounds..you will be treated as a vagrant or a beggar.
2. One who wanders or roams about; a person who leads a wandering life; a rover.
c1590Greene Fr. Bacon xi, Vagrant, go roam and range about the world, and perish as a vagabond on earth! 1718Pope Odyss. ii. 212 Unnumber'd birds glide through the aerial way, Vagrants of air, and unforeboding stray. 1719De Foe Crusoe ii. (Globe) 361 In about five Days Time the three Vagrants, tir'd with Wandring,..came back. a1770Jortin Serm. (1771) V. ix. 194 He chose the Israelites, poor vagrants who had not a foot of ground of their own. 1807J. Barlow Columb. ii. 194 Why,..if ages past Led the bold vagrants to so mild a waste,..Why the wild woods for ever must they rove?
fig.1612T. Taylor Comm. Titus iii. 3 We shal not neede trauell farre to seeke instances of such vagrants out of the wayes of God.
3. A wandering or non-sedentary spider (see first quot.).
1815Kirby & Sp. Entomol. xiii. (1816) I. 423 The former Walckenaer, in his admirable work on spiders, has designated by the name of Vagrants. 1835Kirby Hab. & Inst. Anim. II. xix. 298 There is a very common black and white spider amongst the vagrants.
B. adj.
1. Wandering about without proper means of livelihood; living in vagrancy or idle vagabondage; of or belonging to the class of vagrants or itinerant beggars.
α1461Litt. Red Bk. Bristol (1900) II. 127 Many..of the Kynges liege people..gothe vagaraunt and vnoccupied and may not haue ther labour to ther levyng. 1530Act 22 Hen. VIII, c. 12 §2 Yf any suche ympotent person after the sayde Feast of Seynt Iohn, be vagarant & goo abeggyng. Ibid. §9 Whypped for a vagarant stronge begger. 1608Bacon Comment. Sol. i. Wks. 1868 IV. 91 The Indited recusant, the Non Communicant, the vagarant person. 1632Sanderson Serm. 383 Sturdy Roagues and vagarant townsend beggars.
β1603Knolles Hist. Turks (1621) 160 In all which places they mustred souldiers,..entertaining also strangers, and other vagrant and masterlesse men. 1641Brome Joviall Crew ii, Current and vagrant—Stockant, whippant Beggars! 1722De Foe Plague 122 Every vagrant person may, by the laws of England, be taken up. 1770Goldsm. Des. Vill. 149 His house was known to all the vagrant train. 1814–28Somerville Life & Times (1861) 370 Before the general establishment of poor's-rates, the country was over⁓run with vagrant beggars. 1854Act 17 & 18 Vict. c. 74 An Act to render Reformatory and Industrial Schools in Scotland more available for the Benefit of Vagrant Children.
fig.1663J. Spencer Prodigies (1665) 252 If once Right Reason..be put by its office, our inward house will soon lie..free for every vile and vagrant Opinion to take up and dwell therein.
2. fig. Wandering, straying, roving; inconstant, unsettled, wayward, etc.
1522More De quat. Noviss. Wks. 76/1 It often happeth, yt the very face sheweth y⊇ mind walking a pilgrimage, in such wise yt not withoute som note & reproch of suche vagaraunte mind [etc.]. 1612T. Taylor Comm. Titus iii. 3 We haue a wandring and vagrant vaine euen after our calling, and therefore much more before. 1651H. More Enthus. Tri. (1662) 48 His causality is more vagrant, more lax and general, then to be brought in here. 1684Burnet tr. Utopia 141 They think that if they were not so strictly restrained from all vagrant Appetites, very few would engage in a married state. 1711Steele Spect. No. 143 ⁋4 Ambition, Envy, vagrant Desire, or impertinent Mirth will take up our Minds. 1729Butler Serm. Wks. 1874 II. Pref. 26 Men daily, hourly sacrifice the greatest known interest, to..any vagrant inclination. 1755J. Shebbeare Lydia (1769) I. 116 Pleasure skin-deep and vagrant, pain heart-felt and long⁓lasting! 1820Hazlitt Lect. Dram. Lit. 154 We wander by forest side or fountain,..following our vagrant fancies. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. v. I. 542 The offspring of a vagrant and ignoble love. 1879Dixon Windsor I. xxiii. 234 A child..with a violent and vagrant temper.
3. Leading a wandering or nomadic life; ranging or roaming from place to place; straying, straggling. Cf. vagant a. 1.
pred.1546Yorks. Chantry Surv. (Surtees) 201 They shulde here and se lernyng in the sayd college, and not to be vagrant abrode in the sayd towne. 1589Puttenham Eng. Poesie i. iii. (Arb.) 22 The people remained in the woods and mountains, vagarant and dispersed like the wild beasts. 1610Healey St. Aug. Citie of God 889 [They] became vagrant through most parts of the Romaine Empire. 1649G. Daniel Trinarch., Hen. IV, lxxxii, Vagrant as a Rout Possest with feare, led by vnskillfull guides. 1728Pope Dunc. i. 232 Ye shall not beg,..Sent with a Pass, and vagrant thro' the land.
attrib.1638Sir T. Herbert Trav. (ed. 2) 90 Fearing his vagrant sonne might grow too potent..he rowses himselfe. 1746Francis tr. Horace, Epist. i. xv. 37 A vagrant Zany, of no certain Manger, Who knew not, ere he din'd, or Friend or Stranger. 1759Johnson Rasselas xxxvii, I amused my⁓self with observing the manners of the vagrant nations. 1781Gibbon Decl. & F. xxv. (1787) II. 532 The vagrant soldiers were recalled to their standard. 1812J. Henry Camp. agst. Quebec 68 Without the path of the vagrant savage to guide us. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. x. II. 630 It might well be..that..regents would continue to administer the government in the name of vagrant and mendicant kings. 1860Hawthorne Marb. Faun I. x. 100 They proved to be a vagrant band, such as..all Italy abounds with.
b. Of animals, birds, etc.
1743Francis tr. Horace, Odes iv. iv. 4 To whom the monarch of the gods assign'd Dominion o'er the vagrant, feather'd race. 1767Phil. Trans. LVII. 396 It becomes a resting place to vagrant birds. 1774Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) III. 53 [The goat is] lively, capricious, and vagrant; it is not easily confined to its flock.., and loves to stray remote from the rest. 1817Wordsw. Vernal Ode 90 The soft murmur of the vagrant Bee. 1855Poultry Chron. III. 562 In one case two swarms, both of them vagrant swarms, took possession of the same hive.
c. Of plants: Rambling or straggling in growth or habit; straying. Also of hair.
1827Hood Mids. Fairies xlix, And sometimes we enrich gray stems, with twined And vagrant ivy. 1851Longfellow Gold. Leg. ii. A Farm, The vagrant Vines that wandered, Seeking the sunshine, round and round. 1862Sala Seven Sons I. xi. 265 She had..a quantity of vagrant brown hair.
4. Of or belonging to a vagrant or wanderer; characterized by, peculiar to, devoted or given up to, vagrancy or wandering.
1583Stubbes Anat. Abus. ii. M 4 b, Doe you allow of that vagarant ministerie, which is in manie Countries..sprong vp of late, to the discredite of the Gospell of Jesus Christ? 1598Hakluyt Voy. I. 490 The worde Turk signifieth a Shepheard or one that followeth a vagarant and wilde kinde of life. 1613Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 665 The Ethiopians..liued before a vagrant life, like the Nomades of olde. 1659Hammond On Ps. lvi. 8 Thou knowest the dayes of my exile, and vagrant condition. 1709Prior Henry & Emma 304 That Beauteous Emma vagrant Courses took; Her Father's House and civil Life forsook. 1775Johnson Let. 27 May in Boswell, Because it will be inconvenient to send them after me in my vagrant state. ― Tax. no Tyr. 22 But the age being now past of vagrant excursion. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. ii. I. 212 Persons whose life has been passed in vagrant diplomacy. 1867Morris Jason xiv. 416 Keeping but vagrant life for thine own part Of what thou boastest with the Gods to share.
5. Of things: Not fixed or stationary; moving hither and thither; spec. in Path. of certain blood-cells.
1586Marlowe 1st Pt. Tamburl. i. i, Ere he march in Asia, or display His vagrant Ensigne in the Persean fields. 1612Woodall Surg. Mate Wks. (1653) 226 Mercurie..is in truth a fugitive vagrant substance. 1743Francis tr. Horace, Odes i. xxvi. 3 Bear them, ye vagrant winds, away. Ibid. xxxiv. 14 The ponderous earth, and vagrant streams. 1794R. J. Sulivan View Nat. II. 417 When we consider the motion of those vagrant worlds, the comets. 1800Moore Anacreon lviii. 10 Then I loose all such clinging cares, And cast them to the vagrant airs. 1841Dickens Barn. Rudge xv, A vagrant ray of sunlight patching the shade of the tall houses. 1857Dufferin Lett. High Lat. (ed. 3) 203 The lofty ice mountains that wander like vagrant islands along the coast of America. 1899Allbutt's Syst. Med. VI. 497 The fixed cells of the tissue to a great extent appear to supplant in its office the vagrant leucocyte.
†b. Of a disease or pain: Not local or confined to one particular part. Obs.
1656Ridgley Pract. Physick 24 Arthritis that is vagrant is Scorbutical, and a pain of divers parts. 1684tr. Bonet's Merc. Compit. iv. 126 M. N. was suddenly taken with most sharp vagrant pains.
Add:[A.] 4. Ornith. A bird that is encountered outside its normal area of distribution or migration; spec. (in the U.K.), one that has been recorded fewer than twenty times in the British Isles.
1920H. F. Witherby et al. Pract. Handbk. Brit. Birds I. 140 The Lapland Bunting... has occurred [in] many English counties as vagrant. 1953D. A. Bannerman Birds Brit. Isles I. 337 The snow finch has occurred as a vagrant in several other countries of eastern Europe. 1983Birds Spring 15/2 The vagrant from the Continent, was found sheltering under a car. Many birds are blown off course during gales. 1988Bird Watching Aug. 46/2 Returning migrants are beginning to appear and by the end of the month we could witness good seabird movements and the first North American vagrant.
▪ II. ˈvagrant, v. rare—1.
[f. prec.]
intr. To behave like a vagrant; to ramble or roam.
1886R. Broughton Dr. Cupid I. ix. 156 The boy is out—..vagranting after his kind. |