vagitate

vagitate verb: to wander or move at random.

Verb (1)

vagitate (third-person singular simple present vagitates, present participle vagitating, simple past and past participle vagitated)

(rare) To wander or move at random.
- Even with the emergence of the ideas of self-assertion among the Asians, the Imperialists are not only trying to dominate the region through the system of remote control, but are also vagitating around to get a chance again to enter the ground and graze wantonly.1987, Buddhist Studies, volumes 11–12, Delhi: University of Delhi, →ISSN, →OCLC, page iv
- O I live in a wander tree
  who travels all the turny trails
  and vagitates the vexy vales
  awhere a world'll dare to be,2002 December 2, Elspeth, “The Marish Mere”, in talk.bizarre (Usenet)

Verb (2)

vagitate (third-person singular simple present vagitates, present participle vagitating, simple past and past participle vagitated)

To wail, mewl (as an infant).
- Et le râle, qu'est-ce qu'on en fait. Peut-être n'est-il pas de rigueur après tout. Avoir vagi, puis ne pas être foutu de râler.1956 [1951], Samuel Beckett, translated by Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies, translation of Malone meurt (in French)
- The crucial difference, however, is that in all but one of these English situations, the equitable ownership reappears within at most eighty years: the discretion is exercised, the estate is administered, the unborn vagitate.2000, Andrew Huxley, “Rhodes, Arakan, Grand Cayman: Three Versions of Offshore”, in Ian Edge, editor, Comparative Law in Global Perspective: Essays in Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the...

Forms of vagitate

third-person singular present	vagitates
present participle	vagitating
past participle	vagitated
past	vagitated

Origin of vagitate

Attested earliest as a ghost word in the 1928 volume of the New English Dictionary On Historical Principles (NED). Some later uses may have been based (directly or indirectly) on this entry. The editors of the NED interpreted it as a borrowing from Latin vagitō, vagitāre, an obscure medieval verb Others read here "per Hispaniam e palatio vagitant". built on the root of Classical Latin vagor, vagārī (“to ramble, stroll about”), from vagus (“wandering”).

Borrowed from Latin vāgiō, vāgīre (“to wail, to squall (as an infant), to cry out”) via a frequentative form vāgītō, vāgītāre, attested in medieval Latin as a verb meaning "to wail, to cry out in distress (of an infant); to cry out (of a hare)". Compare French vagir, English vagitus (“the crying of a newborn baby”), vagient (“crying like a child”).

Questions about vagitate

What does vagitate mean?: Vagitate means to wander or move at random.
What part of speech is vagitate?: Vagitate is a verb.
What is the past tense of vagitate?: The past tense of vagitate is vagitated.

Words near vagitate in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: vagitate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “vagitate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vagitate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.