I. ˈvagəˌbänd, ˈvaig-, chiefly Brit -_bənd adjective
Etymology: Middle English vagabound, from Middle French vagabond, from Latin vagabundus, from vagari to move about, wander — more at vagary
1. : moving from place to place without a fixed home : wandering , nomadic
vagabond minstrels
a vagabond people
2.
a. : of, relating to, or characteristic of a wanderer
those vagabond moods that visit husbands in April and November — Ellen Glasgow
b. : leading an unsettled, irresponsible, or disreputable life : worthless
a thoroughly vagabond outcast — Bret Harte
3. : not having a fixed course : following an irregular or vagrant course
runs vagabond sailings out of Montreal — New York Times
II. noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English vagabound, from vagabound, adjective, vagabond
1.
a. : one who wanders about from place to place
a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth — Gen 4:12 (Authorized Version)
b.
(1) : one who wanders from place to place with no fixed dwelling or if he has one not abiding in it and who is without visible means of support
(2) : one who is by statute declared a vagabond ; especially : one other than a rogue accountable under British vagrancy statutes for specific offenses
c.
(1) : an idle beggar : tramp
(2) : an idle carefree roamer
2. : an irresponsible, worthless, or disreputable person
such a vagabond of a husband — Hall Caine
3. or vagabond green : duck green
Synonyms:
vagabond , vagrant , truant , tramp , hobo , bum , stiff , swagman , and sundowner designate a person who wanders at will or habitually. vagabond usually implies only a carefree fondness for a roaming life
militiamen fleeing from Washington's army wandered like homeless vagabonds on all the roads — Kenneth Roberts
vagrant implies disreputableness and in its common legal use applies to a person with no fixed or known residence who is likely to become a public menace or public charge
by no means a vagrant but he was an itinerant: at the time of his arrest he peddled fish from a pushcart in the poorer sections of Boston — Phil Stong
the depression had left a number of them indigent, without state or federal relief. Some had become vagrants, tramping the highways of South Texas, living in hobo jungles — Green Peyton
truant applies chiefly to pupils absent from school without permission or authorization
played truant from their Dublin school — London Calling
employers were now obliged … to discharge truants without notice; and one day of unjustified absence sufficed — S.M.Schwarz
tramp is the ordinary, generally derogatory term for one who lives by wandering whether in search of transient work or engaged in beggary or petty thievery, and is also often applied to a morally disreputable woman
wandering fruit tramps who drift through California's central valley, following the crop seasons — Time
a distinct class of these gentlemen tramps, young men no longer young, who wouldn't settle down, who disliked polite society and the genteel conventions — George Santayana
tramps who had been fed at the kitchen door — Sherwood Anderson
don't take it so hard … she's just a tramp — Chandler Brossard
bum stresses worthlessness with implications of laziness and often drunkenness or general moral disreputableness and applies chiefly to one who would rather sponge on others than work
paging the town bum, and soon he appeared, barefooted, his pants falling away from his hips, his face a thicket of whiskers — J.A.Michener
a young reporter working on a story about down-and-out bums — J.A.Morris b. 1904
hobo sometimes implies a willingness to work, sometimes suggests travel by freight trains, and is often applied to a migratory worker who follows seasonal occupations
a hobo works and wanders, a tramp dreams and wanders, and a bum drinks and wanders — S.H.Holbrook
a swarm of crop hoboes had come in on it to work in the back-country lambing camps — H.L.Davis
a piano hobo, knocking around the Mexican border with a four-piece band — Lamp
most distressing of all was the large number of young people who had virtually become hoboes — F.D.Roosevelt
stiff applies chiefly to workers, especially migratory workers or roustabouts; the term is usually limited by a modifier
the pay envelopes of the working stiffs of the smoky little towns of western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana — E.A.Lahey
after sixteen years of being homeless, of working with harvest stiffs, hockey players and sailors — Hugh MacLennan
a cattle stiff
a bindle stiff
swagman is Australian for a hobo or migratory worker in the bush who carries his clothing and bedding with him in a roll and sundowner is Australian and South African for a bum or swagman who makes a practice of arriving at a bush station at sundown to ask for free food and shelter, traditionally unrefusable
bundle of belongings swagmen carry as they tramp about the land — Time
the swagman, a born wanderer who moves steadily on and occasionally takes a casual job — Times Literary Supplement
some swagmen were known as sundowners, because they arrived in time to eat the evening meal but not to earn it — William Power
III. intransitive verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
: to wander in the manner of a vagabond : roam about
a young ex-typist vagabonding in the Far East — Ida Hurst