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Stray   /streɪ/   Listen
Stray

adjective
1.
Not close together in time.  Synonym: isolated.  "A few stray crumbs"
2.
(of an animal) having no home or having wandered away from home.  "A stray dog"



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"Stray" Quotes from Famous Books



... tube in her hand). Now, what a question to ask, Dr. Jonathan! Was there ever a morning or afternoon that somebody didn't stray in here with their troubles? (Fiercely.) They don't think a scientist has a real job,—they don't understand, if you put this across—(she holds up the test tube)—you'll save the lives of thousands of soldiers, and a few ordinary ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... of silent thought, he went on into his own chamber, and put down the small lamp he carried, upon the little table, where still lay the stray volume of Ronsard's poems that he had been reading—or rather trying to read—on that tempestuous night when the old pedant knocked at his door. And there was his bed, where Isabelle had slept—the very pillow upon which her dear head had rested. He trembled as he stood and gazed at it, and saw, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... harvest, They will shear and bind; They'll come with elfin music On a western wind; All night they'll sit among the sheaves, Or herd the kine that stray— The quick folk, the fine folk, the folk that ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie

... and Fraeulein's society chafed her nervous sensibilities dangerously; there were only a few brown sparrows, or a stray cat intent on game, to be seen from her window. From the drawing-room, from Sara's boudoir, from her mother's bedroom, there was a charming view of the Park. In the spring the fresh foliage of the trees, and the velvety softness of the grass, would ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... on all right," replied the Doctor. "Travers had bad luck. It must have been a stray bullet which slipped through that chink in the stones. For he could ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... her, sitting on the terrace in the sunshine, an overwhelming flood of joy, reckless and cruel and triumphant. Now he was hers forever, the restless wanderer—delivered to her bound and helpless, never to stray again. Hers to worship and serve and slave for, his troth to Freedom broken—hers ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... squatters swore when they heard the news, and wished they were well away: For the name and the fame of Saltbush Bill were over the country side For the wonderful way that he fed his sheep, and the dodges and tricks he tried. He would lose his way on a Main Stock Route, and stray to the squatters' grass; He would come to a run with the boss away, and swear he had leave to pass; And back of all and behind it all, as well the squatters knew, If he had to fight, he would fight all day, so long as his sheep got through: But this is the story of Stingy Smith, the owner ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... understand the loving Lord the Holy Ghost, the leader and guide of Christ's people. When they err and stray from Jesus the way, and are drawn from Him as the truth, the Spirit comes with His rod of convic-tion and chastisement, to whip souls for their self-righteous pride and folly, back to Christ, to trust wholly in Him, to rely only on Him, and to walk in sweet fellowship with ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... that stray and clutch, Like fern fronds curl and uncurl bold, While baby faces lie in such Close sleep as flowers at night that fold, What is it you would, clasp and hold, Wandering outstretched with wilful touch? O fingers small of shell-tipped rose, How should you know you hold so much? ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... till the rush is over, an' the young uns abed an' asleep, an' I'll tell you all about it. Stray lamb! I should say as much! A little white corset-lamb, used to eat out o' your hand, with a blue ribbon round its neck. Goin' to be sent out to her death—or worse, by a sharp-fangled wolf of a boardin'-house keeper, who'd gnaw the skin off'n your bones, an' then crack ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann

... that the Log, for long long after I first went to sea in the Breeze, and subsequently when removed to the old Kraaken line—of—battle ship, both of which were constantly part of blockading squadrons, could be compared to nothing more fitly than a dish of trifle, anciently called syllabub, with a stray plum here and there scattered at the bottom. But when, after several weary years, I got away in the dear old Torch, on a separate cruise, incidents came fast enough with a vengeance—stem, unyielding, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... thinking up apposite quotations and verifying them. He has worn out two Bartlett's. Wurm is also addicted to maps and dictionaries, and is a great reader of special articles. Consequently his mind is a pound for stray collarless facts; or rather, in its variety of contents, it more closely resembles a building contractor's back yard—odd salvage—rejected doors—a job of window-frames—a pile of bricks for chipping—discarded plumbing—broken junk gathered here and there. Mr. Aust himself, a building ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... him. He speaks of him quietly and without opprobrium to others, but to me he is implacable on the matter. However, he is gone—gone, and there's an end of it. I see no chance of hearing a word about him in future, unless some stray shred of intelligence comes through Mr. Sowden or some other second-hand source. In all this it is not I who am to be pitied at all, and of course nobody pities me. They all think in Haworth that I have disdainfully ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... and Cranach. In his excellent work entitled "Last Words on the History of the Title-Page," Mr. A.W. Pollard observes "From 1550 onwards we find beauty in nooks and corners. Here and there over some special book an artist will have laboured, and not in vain; but save for such stray miracles, as decade succeeds decade, good work becomes rarer and rarer, and at last we learn to look only for carelessness, ill-taste, and caricature, and of these are seldom disappointed." These remarks apply with equal force to the Printer's Mark, although some exceptionally beautiful ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts

... writ large upon the countenances of those who could be seen in the stray beams of light that countered through the porch. But Mrs. Caswell's was the only voice heard. Again she ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump

... gone to bed; I sat reading by a couple of candles. There was a roomful of old books at Bly—last-century fiction, some of it, which, to the extent of a distinctly deprecated renown, but never to so much as that of a stray specimen, had reached the sequestered home and appealed to the unavowed curiosity of my youth. I remember that the book I had in my hand was Fielding's Amelia; also that I was wholly awake. I recall further both ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James

... of the Mounds in years bygone, and had vigilantly sifted the dust of which they were composed. No valuables turned up. How should there be any, seeing that the old hard jailer of Harmony Jail had coined every waif and stray into money, long before? ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... provider among husbands may die without enough life insurance, or run off with some preposterous light of love, or become an invalid or insane, or step over the intangible and wavering line which separates business success from a prison cell. Again, a woman may be deceived: there are stray women who are credulous and sentimental, and stray men who are cunning. Yet again, a woman may make false deductions from evidence accurately before her, ineptly guessing that the clerk she marries today will be the head of ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... certain wolf simply by its track, and because of his wonderful knowledge he can tell, by some instinct that is almost supernatural, when a 'wolf night' comes. Something in the air to-night, something in the sky—in the moon—in the very way the wilderness looks, tells him that stray wolves in the plains and hills are 'packing' or banding together to-night, and that in the morning the sun will be shining, and they will be on the sunny sides of the mountains. See if I am not right. To-morrow night, if Mukoki comes back by then, we shall have some exciting sport with the wolves, ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... and months passed away, during which we were almost constantly at sea, but incidents worth relating had grown scarce, as we were now in piping times of peace, when even a stray pirate had become a rarity, and a luxury denied to all but the small craft people. On one of our cruises, however, we had been working up all morning to the southward of the Pedro shoals, with the wind strong at east, a hard fiery sea—breeze. We had hove—about, some three hours before, and ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... frosty mornings in my path with portions of their bodies still numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to thaw them. On the 1st of April it rained and melted the ice, and in the early part of the day, which was very foggy, I heard a stray goose groping about over the pond and cackling as if lost, or like ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... finally, after another day, he went away. But he wrote to her several times, and came again twice, each time endeavouring to surprise her into talking with him. The girl grew to watch nervously every approach of the daily stage which brought stray travellers from the station four miles distant, and was actually glad when a heavy snow-storm shut them in and made it unlikely that her unwelcome visitor would venture again ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill

... packages of tea and prizes. Penelope grown, I feared, might have become fat and florid, might speak with a twang and wear gaudy hats and gowns. My life in New York, even though I was but a quiet observer, had made me critical of women, and when I could brood unhappily over Gladys Todd's stray wisps of hair I could have little sympathy with the type of the imaginary Penelope Blight. But this morning, when the far-borne freshness of the woods and fields was in the air, and I longed to feel the soft earth beneath my feet, to break from the enclosing walls and to stride over ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... to exploration. Adelie penguins waddled about the tide-crack over which we crossed to examine the rock, which was of coarse-grained granite, presenting great, vertical faces. Hundreds of snow petrels flew about and some stray skua ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... knew that a mere stray creature could not find room in the thoughts of so great a man—at so great a time; and she sat silent, but she reached out and held the hand of his mother. Since he could not speak with her he had sent to ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... himself whether the phantom he had seen might have been a stray reflection of one of the torches, the lights all at once disappeared from the upper part ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... promise not to tell! There was an old mistress of novices there still who used to be very fond of me. She got one of the houses of the Sacre Coeur to take me in—at Poitiers. They thought they were gathering a stray sheep back into the fold, you understand, as I was brought up a Catholic—of sorts. And I didn't mind!" The familiar intonation, soft, complacent, humorous, rose like a ghost between them. "I used to like going to mass. But this Easter they wanted to make me 'go to my duties'—you ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... of the holy order. You shall subject to it all minds; make the rich, the powerful, the eminent and great, serviceable to it. Into the Orders of the Rosicrucians and Egyptian Masons you shall gather all the stray and isolated sheep into a flock, to await with longing the coming of the shepherd, and prepare a place for him. To the holy Church you shall consecrate the band of brothers, the only blessed Church, which is the lofty abode of the father of our order. To us belongs the ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... or a stray Angelo?" David asked. "Or a ghost? What is the matter? Is it another phase of ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... not mean that the last line may be permitted to stray away from the playlet and crack an unrelated joke. But the last line, being a completing line, may return to some incident earlier than the closing action. It may with full profit even go back to the introduction, as "The Lollard's" last line takes Miss Carey back to her interrupted sleep ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... was served every day at noon. The Bravi were now the only guests, and were installed near one of the windows, for the day was warm. From the middle of the vaulted ceiling a huge bunch of fresh green ferns was hung, not as a substitute for flowers, but to attract and stupefy the stray flies that found their way in from the kitchen, even at that early season ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... summer weather, when we often sat out, the big fly-wheel of the well was commonly heard spinning round, and so the sound became associated with those pleasant days. He used to like to watch us playing at lawn-tennis, and often knocked up a stray ball for us with the curved handle ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... Mrs Grey and her maids went to the little farmhouse which was at one corner of the old building, and chiefly constructed out of its ruins; and while the parties on whom the cares of hospitality devolved were consulting with the farmer's wife about preparations for tea, any stray guest might search for wood-plants in the skirts of the copse on the hill behind, or talk with the children who were jumping in and out of an old saw-pit in the wood, or if contemplative, might watch the minnows in the brook, which was here running parallel with ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... Gordonmammon concluded to buy a young black woman, that Tom might not be again induced to stray off after Dinah; and Tom passively yielded to the second arrangement, as he had to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... Soft speeches will not serve, hard grape-shot is questionable; but hovering between the two is unquestionable. Ever wilder swells the tide of men; their infinite hum waxing even louder into imprecations, perhaps into crackle of stray musketry—which latter, on walls nine feet thick, cannot do execution. The outer drawbridge has been lowered for Thuriot; new deputation of citizens (it is the third and noisiest of all) penetrates that way into the outer court: soft speeches producing no ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... the worm, the wild duck cries, But in the love-light of thine eyes I, trembling, loose the trap. So flies The bird into the air. What will my angry mother say? With basket full I come each day, But now thy love hath led me stray, And I have set ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... this time was given an edge by the fact that the horses, having fed well, and becoming tired of the same place, were inclined to stray. It was impossible to keep them always on picket lines—the nature of the meadow would not permit it—and they soon learned to be very clever with their hobbles. Several mornings we put in an hour or so hunting them up and bringing ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... wandering, Rita and I; and ever since your wife handed her patient over to me as cured we have covered some territory. I don't know if you or Chief Inspector Kerry has been responsible, but the press accounts of the Kazmah affair have been scanty to baldness. One stray bit of news reached us—in Colorado, ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... such, as a sailor fears dangerous rocks; and he was the better able to attain to correctness, because, knowing the levity of his own impetuous disposition, he used to permit the prefects and his chosen counsellors to check, by timely admonition, his own impulses when they were inclined to stray; and he continually showed that he was vexed if he committed errors, and was desirous of ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... of the earth now covered by the Atlantic Ocean proved to be peculiarly well fitted for the abode of the new human race. Thither that part of humanity repaired which had preserved purity. Only stray groups of humanity inhabited other regions. Occult science gives the name of "Atlantis" to that part of the earth which once existed between the present continents of Europe, Africa, and America. (This particular stage of human evolution has its special nomenclature in theosophical ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... the bard entreat The god he hallows, as he pours The winecup? Not the mounds of wheat That load Sardinian threshing floors; Not Indian gold or ivory—no, Nor flocks that o'er Calabria stray, Nor fields that Liris, still and slow, Is eating, unperceived, away. Let those whose fate allows them train Calenum's vine; let trader bold From golden cups rich liquor drain For wares of Syria bought and sold, Heaven's favourite, sooth, for thrice ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... reabsorb'd his soul; Warm from his heaving heart a sudden sigh Burst thro his lips; he turn'd his moisten'd eye, And thus besought his Angel: speak, my guide, Where leads the pass? and what yon purple tide? How the dim waves in blending ether stray! No lands behind them rise, no pinions on them play. There spreads, belike, that other unsail'd main I sought so long, and sought, alas, in vain; To gird this watery globe, and bring to light Old ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... rode back at full speed to meet the camel train. As soon as it arrived the riders, of whom there were two on each animal, dismounted. The camels were led back to a hollow where they would be safe from any stray bullet, and after a short pause one of the horsemen again advanced and at a rapid pace made a circle round the fort at a distance of two or three hundred yards only. A scattered fire was opened by the defenders, but the speed at which he was riding disconcerted their aim, and having completed ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... had no money, nothing beyond a stray sovereign or two in her purse. She had taken off most of her jewellery with the exception of an old diamond bangle of quaint design. She hated the sight of it now as she hated the sight of anything that suggested wealth and money. With a firm resolve in her mind, Beatrice ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White

... undisturbed, except by the shriek of the passing steamer, casting golden-green reflections into the stream at twilight, and shadows of deepest blackness, star-pierced, at remoter depths of night. Here, now and then, a stray gull from the sea sends a flying throb of white light across the mirror below, or the sweeping wings of a hawk paint their moth-like image on the blue surface, or a little flaw of wind shudders across the water in a black ripple; but except for these ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... moving his cot bedstead from some gentle leak that was getting too familiar with his bedclothes; or when in the dreary winter the Storm King howled around and bore some fleecy flakes on his windy gusts through a stray hole in the roof, and morning showed us a miniature white mountain on ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... down to the mere passivity of the third volume, and the closing scene of Robert Elsmere's days, very exquisitely as this episode of unbelieving yet saintly biography has been conceived and executed. Catherine certainly, for one, has no profit in the development of Robert's improved gospel. The "stray sheep," we think, has by no means always the best of the argument, and her story is really a sadder, more testing one than his. Though both alike, we admit it cordially, have a genuine sense of the eternal ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater

... is obscure enough, and we know no details save that he had been "in business." But had he ever an affair of the heart? Just as in real life, when a stray allusion will occasionally escape from a person betraying something of his past history, so once or twice a casual remark of Mr. Pickwick's furnishes a hint. Thus Mr. Magnus, pressing him for his advice in this delicate matter of proposing, ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald

... cabins had stood. Not a log remained. The horses, with the exception of two, were tethered in the copse of laurel. He recognized Colonel Zane's thoroughbred, and Betty's pony. He cut them loose, positive they would not stray from the glen, and might easily ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey

... confessed that twenty-three years ago the witness had met him at a public-house in Devereux Court, in company with two other men, and sold him several articles in plate, ornaments, etc. The great bulk of these articles had, of course, long left the pawnbroker's abode; but he still thought a stray trinket or two, not of sufficient worth to be reset or remodelled, nor of sufficient fashion to find a ready sale, lingered in his drawers. Eagerly, and with trembling hands, did Brandon toss over the motley ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... In a moment he heard a wild shout and saw the "guide" coming down the trail in hot haste. He reached the corral in time to head off the first of his horses which was just coming through. Wilbur had no special desire to cause the animals to stray, and was only too well satisfied to help the "guide" catch them and tie them up to trees about the camp. By this time it was long after the hour that the boy usually began his patrol, but he waited to see the party ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... on their account, quite putting aside the chance of securing a stray vote here or there, I feel it a duty not to spare myself, but to go through with it just for ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... dear Polly, for he has wonderful instincts," said the major, casting a look of endearing sympathy at the animal. The good woman pledged her word not to be found wanting. Indeed so well did she appreciate the instincts, and even the tastes of the animal, that, having at hand a stray copy of the New York Express, and another of a very rare but no less wonderful journal, called the Mirror, (whose editor was famous for the immense amount of light and shade he threw into his financial operations,) ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... only little stray things, and Cherry has done the chief of them," said Ethel. "Oh, it is grievously bad still," she added, sighing. "Such want of truth, such ungoverned tongues and tempers, such godlessness altogether! It is only surface-work, taming the children at school, while they have such ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... carried through its portals. This house was there. Long closed, walled in, guarded by tall trees, seen at far intervals and from a distance, as through a glass darkly, it had become to her an enchanted spot, about which played her quick fancy, but where her feet might never stray. ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... not lost much wealth by wreck of sea? Buried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye Stray'd his affection in unlawful love? A sin prevailing much in youthful men Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing. Which of these sorrows is ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... is Bentham, the lawyer," Wrayson answered. His eyes were fixed upon the lady, who seemed not at all indisposed to become the object of any stray attention. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... had given way, were visible in the remains of dairies burnt down, stockyards in ruins, untrodden roads. We hoped to find within the territory of the native, ponds of clear water, unsoiled by cattle, and a surface on which we might track our own stray animals, without their being confused by the traces ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... carriage made him suspect that the foremost puncher was Butch Siegrist, and when the men came into clearer view, he recognized scarcely without question the big sorrel with white trimmings on which Kreeger had ridden off that morning. The two men had found a Shoe-Bar stray; that was all. And yet, on second thought, how did they come to be here when they were supposed to be working at the very ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... Raleigh had gone to London with him, and in London had he stayed. After the solitude of the forest, the gaiety of the court attracted him strongly; and, as her most gracious Majesty was disposed to smile upon him, he had said to Drake, "The sun shines, Frank; beshrew me if I stray out of the circle of its warm rays." To which the seaman replied, "God forgive thee, Wat, for dancing so much after a woman's heels. The sea—as I know full well—can be treacherous, but I serve a ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... fashionable way To-night our author begs your leave to stray. No fustian hero rages here to-night, No armies fall to fix a tyrant's right: From lower life we draw our scenes' distress: —Let not your equals move your pity less! Virtue distrest in humble state support; Nor think she ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... to occasional mild friction and 'local' excitement. Up to the present time, however, Walden had on the whole lived a tranquil life, such as best suited his tranquil and philosophic temperament, and his occasional 'brushes' with. snow-like in the rays of the sun, which flashed clear on its stray bits of gold and broken incrustation of gems, sending a straight beam through the eastern window on the one word 'Resurget' like a torch of hope ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... desperate situation. Famine and consequent sickness were in his camp. His army was daily dwindling away. He was emphatically in an enemy's country. Not a soldier could stray from the ranks without danger of assassination. He had taken Madrid, and Madrid ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... but if you don't, there is no cause to grieve. They have served their day, and have given you pleasure. Never mind if you have left some oddments behind; Elsie can send them on. I never have a visitor at the vicarage that I have not to expend my substance posting toothbrushes or sponge-bags or stray garments after ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the melee a radar set had been turned on but it couldn't pick up any targets. This did, however, eliminate the possibility of the lights' being aircraft. They weren't stray balloons either, because the winds at all altitudes were blowing in a westerly direction. They obviously weren't meteors. They weren't searchlights on a haze layer because there was no weather conducive to forming a haze layer ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... errors are not confined to stray instances, such as we have noticed, in which the imposition of preconceived ideas can readily be detected by a little closer attention to the actual facts. He believes that a falsification due to preconceived ideas, runs right through the whole of our direct ...
— The Misuse of Mind • Karin Stephen

... that the limits of the material self, as above understood, may be indefinitely extended. There are men who feel about their country as the average normal man feels about his home; and doubtless the suffering of a stray beggar tugged at the heart of St. Francis as the misfortune of wife or child does in the case of other men. How far abroad our "interests" are to be found, and just what "interests" we shall regard as intimately and peculiarly our own, ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... spawning season. The male of the smooth-tailed stickleback (G. leiurus) performs the duties of a nurse with exemplary care and vigilance during a long time, and is continually employed in gently leading back the young to the nest, when they stray too far. He courageously drives away all enemies including the females of his own species. It would indeed be no small relief to the male, if the female, after depositing her eggs, were immediately devoured by ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... dawn he doth peg in His noble work and brave; And eke from cark and wordly sin He seeketh soles to save; And all day long, with quip and song, Thus stitcheth he the way Our feet may know the right from wrong, Nor ever go a stray. ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley

... by all but a few faithful followers. The campaign—at last well in hand and directed by that prince of Indian fighters, Benjamin Church, now commissioned a colonel by General Winslow—was approaching an end. Using friendly savages as scouts, Colonel Church gradually located and captured stray bodies of Indians and brought them as captives to Plymouth. Finally, coming on the trail of Philip himself, he first intercepted his followers, and then, relentlessly pursuing the fleeing chieftain ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... "detached thoughts imply the idea of a very great number of subjects on which the author lets his pen stray without the pretension of ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... solved this mystery yet?" He shoved the large tin of cigarettes which stood on a table beside him towards my companion. Holmes stretched out his hand at the same moment, and between them they tipped the box over the edge. For a minute or two we were all on our knees retrieving stray cigarettes from impossible places. When we rose again, I observed Holmes's eyes were shining and his cheeks tinged with colour. Only at a crisis have I ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... fashion, yet he has contrived to rival Strauss in his own genre. Some of these valses are trivial, artificial, most of them are bred of candlelight and the swish of silken attire, and a few are poetically morbid and stray across the border into the rhythms of the mazurka. All of them have been edited to death, reduced to the commonplace by vulgar methods of performance, but are altogether sprightly, delightful specimens of the composer's ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... time was young June even London sky and air were wonderful. Stray breaths of fragrance came and went. The green of the trees in the Gardens was light and fresh and in the bedded-out curves and stars and circles there were more flowers every hour, so that it seemed as if ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... hell. Now, I am going to tell you how it came about that the vagabond son turned over a new leaf and became dutiful, and finally entered paradise. The poet says, "Although the hearts of parents are not surrounded by dark night, how often they stray from the right road in their affection for ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... religion has so seldom found A skilful guide into poetic ground! The flowers would spring where'er she deigned to stray, And every muse attend her in her way. Virtue, indeed, meets many a rhyming friend, And many a compliment politely penned; But unattired in that becoming vest Religion weaves for her, and half undressed. Stands in the desert, shivering and forlorn, A wintry ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... shall live till the last day's work shall fail. Have patience now but a little and I will tell you the tale Of how and why she died, And why I am weak and worn, And have wandered away to the meadows and the place where I was born; But here and to-day I cannot; for ever my thought will stray To that hope fulfilled for a little and the bliss of the earlier day. Of the great world's hope and anguish to-day I scarce can think; Like a ghost, from the lives of the living and their earthly deeds I shrink. I will go adown ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris

... bedroom and arrayd herself in a grass green muslin of decent cut a lace scarf long faun colored kid gloves and a muslin hat to correspond. She carried a parasole in one hand also a green silk bag containing a few stray hair pins a clean handkerchief five shillings and a pot of ruge in case. She looked a dainty vishen [Pg 80] with her fair hair waving in the breeze and Bernard bit his lips rarther hard for he could hardly contain himself and felt he must ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford

... it at first," replied Grandfather, "but she'll soon find out. We'll fix them up in a comfortable box and they'll be as safe and happy and perhaps even better fed than if they'd stayed out here in the woods where stray dogs might hurt them. Come on, now, Pussy; let's hurry for ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson

... A guard in sight; they wisely keep below, Sheltered by the grey parapet from some Stray bullet of our lansquenets, who might Practise ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... was dumbfounded to hear some one come crashing through the brake, apparently quite close by, and making straight toward him. It could not be the Chilian, for he would never be making all that disturbance—unless indeed he had gone mad under the stress of being hunted—so it must necessarily be a stray Peruvian soldier. Jim at once sprang to his feet and began to poke about among the bushes with the muzzle of his carbine, as though searching for somebody who might possibly be hidden among them, at the same time turning his back on the approaching ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... Irishman of that name. Rumold can be heard of in Mechlin, Albhuin in Saxony, Kilian in Bavaria, Fursey in Peronne, and in far Tarentum the traveller will find more than one trace of the reformer of that city—the Irishman, St. Cathaldus. We cannot suppose that any man will stray from Stackallen, or Maynooth at least, without keeping this purpose in mind, nor would it misbecome a divine from that Trinity College of which Ussher ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... be He who used to stray, A pilgrim on the world's highway, Oppressed by power, and mocked by ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed

... gay We shall not choose, though gipsies may, Through country lanes and woods to stray, Not likely. We shall enter An up-to-date Bohemian lot, And, if you read The Daily Rot, You'll find it has observed us (what?) Proceeding at a smartish trot Through London's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various

... our heart—with tresses thin and grey, And eye that knew the Book of Life so well, And brow serene, as thou wert wont to stray Amidst thy flowers—like Adam ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... show. He was stiff with his great age and the cruel rheumatism that is the doom of the field-worker; and against the brass and leather of his boots the stubble whispered loudly. Overhead the rooks and gulls gave short, harsh cries as they circled around hoping for stray grains; but the thousand little lives which had thriven in the corn—the field mice and frogs and toads—had been stilled by the sickles; some few had escaped to the shelter of the hedges, but most ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... possibility of its falling on the results of our excavations, the pottery and skeletons, which, for safety's sake, I kept in my tent. The situation was not improved by some indiscreet burro (donkey), who would stray into the camp and get himself entangled in ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... also the effect of a feeble presentation of the Christian doctrine of the Father's forgiveness of sin. Nevertheless, we may note in a hymn-book published in London for the use of members of the [A]rya Sam[a]j resident there, such hymns as "My God and Father, while I stray," and "My God, my Father, blissful name," as if the name were not explicitly excluded. We also read that the very last parting words of the founder of the [A]ryas himself were: "Let Thy will be done, O Father!"[86] The heart of man will not be denied the ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... in the little barrel. Say, you haven't seen anything of a boy of mine in your travels? My lad and one of the men have gone after a stray cow. I'm fear'd she's ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... Roger, walked a few steps, clinging to the Ethels' fingers, patted Helen's cheek, rippled all over when Dicky danced before her, and even permitted Katharine to take her on her lap. This was a concession on Katharine's part as well as on Elisabeth's, for Katharine was not much interested in a stray baby. She saw, however, that the Mortons all were in love with the little creature so she did her best to ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... Whiting languidly descended the broad terrace steps. If her slow progress suggested bodily weariness, her whole bearing was not less indicative of spiritual lassitude. She allowed her hand to stray indolently along the balustrade, as with the other she held the lace-covered sunshade at a ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... accomplished, and the evening of the tenth day was closing in. The stars were stealing, one by one, into the blue heavens above, and the bright lights of a hundred camp-fires, far and near, announced the welcome fact that the Queen City was near at hand. The stray shot, too, of some vigilant sentinel, reminded her that, without passports, one could not easily find ingress to the once peaceful, hospitable city. As this thought came, Leah trembled; but she passed forward undaunted to the dreaded sentry line that stretched itself across her pathway. ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... young man's life would have gone to pieces. What saved me was the intensity of my passion for Art, and a moral revolt against any action that I thought could or would definitely compromise me in that direction. I was willing to stray a little from my path, but never further than a single step, which I could retrace when ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... two infirmiers and three soldiers with guns on their shoulders, we two nurses in our uniforms, then two officers and some more soldiers. As we went down the road to the little church in R—— we passed long lines of soldiers going somewhere, and everyone saluted. A few stray people followed us into the church and afterwards to the graveyard, where we left Le Roux with his comrades who had gone before. I had not been there since All Saints Day and it was sad to see ...
— 'My Beloved Poilus' • Anonymous

... puppy and settled it in his lap as the carriage resumed its even rolling down the broad, beautiful avenue. "One moment upholding the rights of birth, the next rebelling against the injustice of it. Are your sympathies with the unfortunate so keen, monsieur, that even this stray cur may ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... of my childhood, and Guide of my youth, Thou Father of mercies, and Fountain of truth;— Protect and direct me wherever I stray, And bless little Henry ...
— The Adventures of Little Bewildered Henry • Anonymous

... card-indexes close at hand when he is at home, and with the means of instantly putting his thoughts on paper if they come to him after he has gone to bed, he knows that he is in a position to take advantage of every stray idea that may contain a plot germ, or that may aid him in developing a story already ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... looked often behind him. Farther along, the ground was more open; and from a hill they looked far away over wide level land. Herds of horses and bison were grazing there, and packs of wolves skulked through the edge of the forest. They waited to spring upon the animals that should stray from the herds. ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre

... mood of satiric frolicking as Ibsen's "Ghosts" to its mood of moral horror. Sincerity bars out no themes; it only demands that the dramatist's moods and visions should be intense enough to keep him absorbed; that he should have something to say so engrossing to himself that he has no need to stray here and there and gather purple plums to eke out what was intended to be an apple tart. Here is the heart of the matter: You cannot get sincere drama out of those who do not see and feel with sufficient ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... Martineau and her face was streaming with tears. "And life, you know, isn't to be taken seriously. It is a joke—a bad joke—made by some cruel little god who has caught a neglected planet.... Like torturing a stray cat.... But he took it seriously and he gave up his ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... 58 Vict., c. 57, gives the Board of Agriculture power to make orders for muzzling dogs, keeping them under control, and the detention and disposal of stray dogs; and section 2 of the Dogs Act, 1906 (known by some as the Curfew Bell Act), says that the Diseases of Animals Act, 1894, shall ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... and the Sun is ever in their hearts. Ah, Rose of the world, dear Lily of the fields, you will return; like Spring you will come from that heaven where you are, and in every valley the flowers will run before you and the poppies will stray among the corn, and the proud gladiolus will bow its violet head; then on the hillside I shall hear again the silver laughter of the olives, and in the wide valleys I shall hear all the rivers running to the sea, and the sweet wind will wander ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... beauty, in thought or in nature, or some of the many-sided philosophical reflections of the author. In one sense these stray birds are tiny prose poems, a fact which makes the dedication of the volume to 'T. Hara, of Yokohama,' peculiarly appropriate, for they all suggest the delicacy and minuteness of Japanese poetry as it is known to us in ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... and invidious lie, yet seeing his grace so much irritated, he durst not open his lips on the subject, further than by saying, "But, my lord duke, you must always remember that Hogg is no ordinary man, although he may have shot a stray moorcock." And then turning to me he said, "Before you had ventured to give any saucy language to a low scoundrel of an English gamekeeper, you should have thought of Fielding's tale of ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... thick clump of bushes that lay to the north of the house and tepees. Dogs might stray that way or they might not. If they did, a rifle shot would silence the first that gave tongue, and he knew that alone he was too swift in flight to be overtaken ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... stray or range, Whate'er I do, thou dost not change; I steadier step when I recall That if I slip thou dost not ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... end to an uncomfortable and dangerous state of things. Thus reflecting and thus deciding, the bishop descended the stony street in his usual stately manner, and even patted the heads of one or two stray urchins, who smiled in his face with all the confidence of childhood. Afterwards, the mothers of those especial children were offensively proud at this episcopal blessing, and had 'words' with less fortunate mothers in consequence. Out of such slight events ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... this remembrance how, just before they had consumed the last of the water in their recent home and buried the last of their neighbors and friends, the reflecting Mirror had brought a view of a few stray wisps of vapor above the Great Sahara which once had been reclaimed by man, where teeming millions in by-gone ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow

... true that Ireland's greatest patriots, from Swift to Davis, have been her children; but she has never understood their spirit, never looked on them as anything but strangers to her family. They have been to her stray robber wasps, to be driven from the hive; while to the others they have seemed cygnets among her duckling brood. It is very wonderful that the University alone has been able to resist the glamour of Ireland's past, and has failed to admire the persistency of her nationality. There has surely ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... hall walked the children, leading the stray dog they had found in the street. The elevator was not open, being on one of the upper floors, and Bunny pushed the button that rang the bell, which told Henry, the colored elevator boy, that someone was on the lower floor, waiting ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope

... like the old chap, for he knows nothing of fear," Frank replied; "but of course there's no necessity for both of us to go with him. One might remain here, so as to knock over any stray beast that managed to escape the attention ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson

... a bit o' blue paaperr, Profissorr. To be shure there's a schrap o' writin' on the back. Blue things always brring to me mind the swate eyes o' Miss Molly Brown, the saints protict her" and she handed the stray piece of thin, blue, foreign letter paper to the eager young man, who clutched it and smoothed it out and read ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed

... in the world!" added Mr. Bainrothe, who was dining with us that day, coming to the rescue quite magnanimously as it seemed, and for once receiving as his recompense a grateful look from the stray lamb of the tribe of Judah, reposing quietly in ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... are not, perhaps, aware how much of what they may think virtue they owe to constitution; and such are but too severe judges of men like Byron, whose mind, like a day of alternate storm and sunshine, is all dark shades and stray gleams of light, instead of the twilight gray which illuminates happier though less distinguished mortals. I always thought, that, when a moral proposition was placed plainly before Lord Byron, his mind yielded a pleased and willing assent to it; but, if there was any side view given in the ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... she was on the horse before me, and, shooting down a couple of fellows who made a rush at my reins, I dashed out again. Stray shots were fired after us. But fortunately the Sepoys were all busy looting, most of them had laid down their muskets, and no one really took up the pursuit. I turned off from the parade ground, dashed down ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... ragged and disreputable-looking. He had not altered much since he left Ballarat, save that he looked more dilapidated- looking, but stood there in his usual sullen manner, with his hat drawn down over his eyes. Some stray wisps of grass showed that he had been camping out all the hot day on the green turf under the shadow of the trees, and it was easy to see from his appearance what a vagrant he was. Vandeloup was annoyed at the ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... with my class. During the '70's and '80's the eight hour movement laid me off on several strikes, long and short. This enforced leisure was not idleness for me, for in these periods the world of science, art and philosophy shot their stray gleams into my startled mind, and I found time to ponder on what leisure might do for the mob. What did it not do for me, and what has it not done for me since? And I in the very ecstasy of my being ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... thoughts proud Science never taught to stray, Far as the Statesman's walk or Patriot-way; Yet simple Nature to his hopes had given Out of a cloud-capp'd head a humbler heaven; Some untam'd World in depths of wood embraced— Some happier Island in the wat'ry-waste— And where admitted to that equal ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... than Fred, who had nerved himself to meet the worst or best fortune. A few minutes more listening satisfied Mickey that the redskin was not a dozen feet in front, and that a particularly large boulder, which was partly revealed by some stray moonlight that made its way through the limbs and branches, was sheltering the scout. Not only that, but he became convinced that the Indian was moving around the left side of the rock, hugging it and keeping so close to the ground ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne

... know each lane, and every alley green, Dingle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood, And every bosky bourn from side to side, My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood; And, if your stray attendance be yet lodged, Or shroud within these limits, I shall know Ere morrow wake, or the low-roosted lark From her thatched pallet rouse. If otherwise, I can conduct you, lady, to a low But loyal cottage, where you may be safe 320 Till ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... introduced to a few of the group around the little American. That perfect ease of manner, which held not a vestige of condescension, soon exerted its charm. One after another drew near that envied circle, anxious to pick up some stray pearl of speech from those lovely lips. The women forgot to be envious, because she never for one moment forgot or ignored them. Even gouty Mrs Masterman found that her ailment had been remembered, and was sympathetically enquired about in ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)

... Lee." If a stray sunbeam had not slanted at just that moment across Miss Lee's upturned face, turning the curly ends of her fair hair to threads of sheen, John Westley might have passed right on. Instead, he stopped abruptly and stared at ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... wheels of the one in front, so as to form a fairly effective barricade, which would at least prevent the camp being rushed without warning, should an attack be made by the enemy. He also took care that the mules were picketed within the enclosure so formed, so that they might not stray away or be stolen; and finally, he told off half a dozen of the best-armed and most resolute-looking men, under the command of Ling, to act as sentries in different watches during the first half of the night, resolving to keep watch ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... bugs, old china, Indian baskets, Indian blankets, pipes, domestic implements, war paraphanalia, photographs, butterflies; make an herbarium of the flowers of your State; collect postage stamps, old books, first editions; go in for extra-illustrating books; pick up and classify all the stray phrases you hear—do anything that will occupy your mind to ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... will bring up going round the stables and cowhouse in search of stray new-laid white eggs, which I bore off, greatly to the disgust of the great black cock, with the yellow saddle-hackles and ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... Many stray cats watch for the coming of the cat's-meat man, for they know that he will befriend them, and many a tidbit does he give to some lean hungry creature as he merrily trudges ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... Piccadilly and the Strand. I was reminded of a pleasant prospector's camp in Alaska. Only, everybody was in uniform and occasionally something whished through the branches of the trees. One looked up to see what it was and where it was going, this stray ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... who were the best mounted, immediately set off in pursuit of them, desiring Swinton to proceed with the caravan, and they would drive on the cattle and join him. They galloped off as well as the horses could gallop, and perceived the stray horses and oxen still at full speed, as if they were chased by the lions. They followed in the direction, but it was now so dark that they were guided only by the clatter of their hoofs and their shoes in the distance; and after a chase of four or five miles they ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat

... images, of older scenes, remain congregated in his mind, each mingling in new associations with those now visibly passing before him, and these again confused with other images of his own ceaseless, sleepless imagination, flashing by in sudden troops. Fancy how his paper will be covered with stray symbols and blots, and undecipherable shorthand:—as for his sitting down to "draw from Nature," there was not one of the things which he wished to represent, that stayed for so much as five seconds together: but none of them escaped for all that: they are sealed up in that strange ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... worth reading about. The history of her times rises and lives around her. In her vivid description we see the new rugged country, over which she travelled from end to end; in her accounts of current literature we pick up stray bits of information as to new authors and new words. "Playfulness," for instance, is one which she stigmatizes as "silly in sound and significance," and declares that she does not read the new novels "with the exception of Walter Scott's." More interesting still to ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... neither sun nor moon above, nor rivers or sea below. The King's dazzled eyes could not see the radiant shapes which showed themselves; the King's dulled ears could not hear the sounds which played about them. It seemed as though his body were dissolving in confusion; his thoughts began to stray, and consciousness threatened to leave him. So he begged the magician to return. The magician put his spell upon him, and it seemed to the King as though he were falling into ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... lordship, the jury, prisoner, witness and barristers. Presumably the case had reached an acute stage, for even the judge appeared slightly mindful of what was going on, and allowed his glance to stray toward the witness. The latter, a little man, in cheap attire flashily debonnaire if the worse for long service, seemed to experience difficulty in speaking, to hesitate before his words, and, when he ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham



Words linked to "Stray" :   locomote, move, maunder, domesticated animal, travel, go, gallivant, lost, sporadic, gad, tell, domestic animal, jazz around



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