The origin of words: STRAY

Stray dates back to the late 13th century. The Middle English verb strayen, a variant of astraienor estraien, comes from the Old and Middle French estraier, which meant ‘to wander about, roam, drift or run loose,’ and was usually said of animals, especially rider-less horses. Linguists are unsure about the origin. Some think that it comes from the Vulgar Latin estragare, a contraction of estravagare, from the Latin extra vagari, ‘to wander outside’ (this would make it related to the English adjective extravagant). Others trace it back to Latin a different way: with the meaning ‘go about the streets’ literally evolving from estree (street or highway), which in turn comes from the Latin via strata, or ‘paved road’ (also the origin of the English street). The figurative sense, ‘to wander from the moral path,’ dates back to the 14th century. The noun also dates back to the late 13th century. It comes from the verb, but this separation probably occurred in French, so it was the Anglo French noun estraié that became the noun-form of stray in English. Stray has been used as an adjective, mainly of animals, since around the year 1600, and of people or objects since around the year 1900. The adjective comes from the verb, but through a shortening of the adverb astray.