• (RP, America) IPA: /ˈveɪ.ɡɹənt/

vagrant (plural vagrants)

1. A person without a home; a wanderer.

   Every morning before work, I see that poor vagrant around the neighborhood begging for food.

   • 1785, William Cowper, “The Garden”, in The Task, a Poem, in Six Books. By William Cowper [...] To which are Added, by the Same Author, An Epistle to Joseph Hill, Esq. Tirocinium, or a Review of Schools, and The History of John Gilpin, London: Printed for J[oseph] Johnson, No. 72 St. Paul's Church-Yard, OCLC 221351486 ↗; republished as The Task. A Poem. In Six Books. To which is Added, Tirocinium: or, A Review of Schools, new edition, Philadelphia, Pa.: Printed for Thomas Dobson, bookseller, in Second-street, second door above Chestnut-street, 1787, OCLC 23630717 ↗, page 87 ↗:

     'Tis the cruel gripe, / That lean hard-handed poverty inflicts, / The hope of better things, the chance to win, / The wiſh to ſhine, the thirſt to be amus'd, / That at the found of Winter's hoary wing, / Unpeople all our counties, of ſuch herds, / Of flutt'ring, loit'ring, cringing, begging, looſe, / And wanton vagrants, as make London, vaſt / And boundless as it is, a crowded coop.

2. (biology, especially, ornithology) An animal, typically a bird, found outside its species’ usual range.
3. A widely-distributed Asian butterfly, Vagrans egista, family Nymphalidae.

• (person without a home or job) beggar, down-and-out, drifter, tramp, vagabond
• (wanderer) wanderer, itinerant
• See also Thesaurus:vagabond

• French: vagabond, vagabonde
• German: Gammler, Gammlerin, Landstreicher, Landstreicherin, Nichtsesshafter, Nichtsesshafte, Vagabund, Vagabundin, Vagant, Vagantin
• Italian: vagabondo, barbone, girovago, senza fissa dimora
• Portuguese: andarilho, vagabundo
• Russian: бродя́га
• Spanish: vagabundo

• French: vagabond, vagabonde
• German: Landstreicher, Landstreicherin
• Italian: vagabondo, viandante, girovago
• Portuguese: andarilho
• Russian: стра́нник
• Spanish: vagabundo

• French: erratique
• German: Ausnahmegast, Irrgast
• Portuguese: errante

vagrant

1. Moving without certain direction; wandering; erratic; unsettled.

   • That beauteous Emma vagrant courses took.

   • 1881, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica,_Ninth_Edition/Johnson,_Samuel Samuel Johnson]”, in Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition:

     While leading this vagrant and miserable life, Johnson fell in love.

2. Wandering from place to place without any settled habitation.

   a vagrant beggar

• vagabond
• vague