vagrate

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

1. (zoology) To wander randomly before settling in a new place to live.
   • 1895, John Alexander Harvie-Brown, Thomas E. Buckley, A Fauna of the Moray Basin - Volume 2, page 156:

     There is scarcely any doubt, however, that a few do breed in the Carn districts, and that they vagrate out to surrounding hills.

   • 1940, The Entomologist; Volumes 73-75, page 205:

     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.

   • 1953, İstanbul Üniversitesi Fen Fakültesi Mecmuası:

     The neonate larvae appear from mid-June to early July and vagrate to the leaves, where they settle, preferably on the lower side.

   • 2006, Laurence Charles Binford, Birds of the Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan, page 220:

     Most western vagrants involve species that frequently vagrate to the East; the only exceptions are all from the Southwest: Broad-billed Hummingbird, Tropical/ Couch's Kingbird, and Cassin's Sparrow (DeSante & Pyle, 1986).

2. To wander freely with no destination.
   • 1967, Annals of the Náprstek Museum - Volumes 3-6, page 165:

     Sometimes one can hear long epic songs, sung in the past perhaps by songsters, who at present are not allowed to vagrate freely.

   • 1968, Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers: Slave Trade, page 29:

     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?

   • 2013, Silvio Canale, The Myth of Motivation: A Journey of Self Discovery, page 235:

     Breathing is the bridge between the body and mind; it anchors the mind; it doesn't allow it to vagrate or to wander.

3. To vary.
   • 1835, The Westminster Review - Volume 23, page 194:

     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.

   • 1956, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Proceedings: Physical sciences. Series B - Volume 59, page 76:

     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.