way-goern.

a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Bodl. 959) (1959) Gen. xxxvii. 25 Syttyng forto ete breed, þey seeyn ysmaliteȝ wey goers [L. viatores] to commen fro galaad.

c1400 Bk. to Mother (Bodl.) 106 (MED) Þe hope of suche men is as gosesomer..or þe mynde of a weigoere þat dwelleþ but a dai.

?a1425 tr. Catherine of Siena Orcherd of Syon (Harl.) (1966) 174 (MED) Meet..ȝe resceyue in þe sacrament..as longe as ȝee ben pilgrymes and weygoers in þe world.

a1500 tr. R. Rolle Mending of Life (Worcester) 45 (MED) Hym thei love as it is possible to weygoers to heveneward.

1577 R. Holinshed Hist. Eng. 262/1 in Chron. I Suche tolles and tallages as were demaunded of waygoers at bridges.

1659 H. Hammond Paraphr. & Annot. Psalms (ed. 2) (Prov. vi. 9–11) Paraphr. 440 All these sorts of misery..will when he little thinks of it, knock at his door, as a traveller or way-goer to an host, that knows nothing of his coming.

1699 A. Boyer Royal Dict. Caimand, a Begger, a lazy Begger, a Mumper, a Way-goer.

1833 New-Eng. Mag. Oct. 319 As I went home I heard the way-goers saying to each other, ‘Was n't that an earthquake of a discourse?’

1894 T. B. Searight Old Pike xxiii. 170 By the side of the drivers frequently sat one or more way-goers whose necessities impelled them to seek cheap transportation.

1921 Western Med. Times Feb. 256/1 Study and the knowledge of the Christ, which Christian Science imparts, enables us to be way-goers here and now.

1995 P. Walsh tr. M. Froment-Meurice Solitudes p. xii He is the essential friend, the fellow way-goer.