vagrant (vagrant)

and n. sometimes vagarant (appar. simulating vagary ), vague 2. An idle stroller; a va stroller; a vagabond; 1; a loafer; a tramp: now the ordinary meaning. Vagrants and Out-laws shall offend thy View; For such must be my Friends. Prior, Henry and Emma. The fugitive, with the brand of Cain on him, was a va Ribton - Turner, Vagrants and Vagrancy, p. 5. grant of nece ity, hunted to death like a wolf. In law the word vagrant has a much more extended meaning than that a igned to it in ordinary language, and in its application the notion of wandering is almost lost, the object of the statutes being to subject to police control various ill-defined cla es of persons whose habits of life are inconsistent with the good order of society. In the English statutes vagrants are divided into three grades: ( a ) idle and disorderly persons, or such as, while able to maintain themselves and families, neglect to do so, unlicensed peddlers or chapmen, beggars, common prostitutes, etc.; (b) rogues and vagabonds, notoriously idle and disorderly persons, fortune-tellers and other like impostors, public gamblers and sharpers, persons having no visible means of living and unable to give a good account of themselves, etc.; (c) incorrigible rogues-that is, such as have been repeatedly convicted as rogues and vagabonds, jail-breakers, and persons escaping from legal durance, etc. In the United States the statutes are diverse, but in their general features include to a greater or le extent beggars, drunken parents who refuse or fail to sup port their children, paupers when di olute and sick, prostitutes, public masqueraders, tramps, truants, etc. vagrantly (va'grant-li), adv. [ modern writers. This is your charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand, in the prince's name. Shak., Much Ado, iii. 3. 26. You took my vagrom e ays in; You found them shelter over sea. New Princeton Rev., VI. 114.