vagrate

Verb

vagrate (third-person singular simple present vagrates, present participle vagrating, simple past and past participle vagrated)

1. To wander randomly before settling in a new place to live.
   • There is scarcely any doubt, however, that a few do breed in the Carn districts, and that they vagrate out to surrounding hills.1895, John Alexander Harvie-Brown, Thomas E. Buckley, A Fauna of the Moray Basin - Volume 2, page 156
   • A moth that is possessed by the instinct to migrate (which is the wrong word; moths do not "migrate" as the zoologist knows migration; they "vagrate"), soars almost as soon as its wings are dry; the very first flight that it makes is the flight that carries it across the sea.1940, The Entomologist; Volumes 73-75, page 205
2. To wander freely with no destination.
   • Sometimes one can hear long epic songs, sung in the past perhaps by songsters, who at present are not allowed to vagrate freely.1967, Annals of the Náprstek Museum - Volumes 3-6, page 165
   • As far as you have observed the free people of colour, have they been disposed to vagrate, except for the purpose of procuring more profitable employment?1968, Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers: Slave Trade, page 29
3. To vary.
   • Among these Kings occurs the renowned name of Ollamh Fodhla, as to the period of whose existence the fabulous historians have vagrated between 1300 and 600 years before Christ.1835, The Westminster Review - Volume 23, page 194
   • The large spread of these potentials, however, seems to indicate that potentials in the dilute solutions of this series somehow vagrate within a fairly wide range.1956, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Proceedings: Physical sciences. Series B - Volume 59, page 76