From Middle English astrai, from Anglo-Norman estray, from the Old French - verb estraier.

• IPA: /ə.stɹeɪ/

estray (plural estrays)

1. (legal) An animal that has escaped from its owner; a wandering animal whose owner is unknown. An animal cannot be an estray when on the range where it was raised, and permitted by its owner to run. A lost animal whose owner is known to the party at hand is not an estray.
2. (archaic) Stray.
   • 1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section VIII:

     [...] All the day / Had been a dreary one at best, and dim / Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim / Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.

estray (estrays, present participle estraying; simple past and past participle estrayed)

1. (archaic) To stray.
   • 1614, Samuel Daniel, Hymen's Triumph:

     With other Maids to fiſh upon the Shoar; Estrays apart, and leaves her Company

• astray
• stray