stravaig

English

WOTD – 25 January 2026

Etymology

Possibly borrowed from Scots stravaig (“(verb) to wander idly, roam; to traverse; (noun) roaming about; casual ramble, stroll”),[1] probably an aphetic form of English extravage (“(obsolete, rare) to go beyond the scope of something, digress; to talk wildly, ramble”),[2] influenced by Scots vaig (“to wander idly, roam”).[1][3] Extravage is a learned borrowing from Medieval Latin extrāvagārī (“to stray outside limits, wander”)[4] (whence extravagate), from Latin extrā (“beyond, outside of”, preposition) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰs (“out”)) + vagārī[5][6] (the present active infinitive of vagor (“to ramble, roam, stroll about, wander”), from vagus (“rambling, roaming, strolling, wandering”) (further etymology uncertain) + -or (the first-person singular present passive indicative of -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs))).

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA(key): /stɹəˈveɪɡ/
  • Audio (General American):(file)
  • (Ireland) IPA(key): /st̪rɑˈveːɡ/, /st̪rə-/
  • (Scotland) IPA(key): /straˈveɡ/
  • Rhymes: -eɪɡ
  • Hyphenation: stra‧veig

Verb

stravaig (third-person singular simple present stravaigs, present participle stravaiging, simple past and past participle stravaiged) (chiefly Ireland, Northern England, Scotland)

  1. (transitive) To stroll or wander aimlessly on (a road, etc.); to ramble.
    • [1834, Samuel Lover, “The Curse of Kishogue”, in Legends and Stories of Ireland (Second Series), London: Baldwin and Cradock, […]; and sold by W. F. Wakeman, […], →OCLC, page 314:
      [I]n them days, you see the people used to be hanged outside o' the town, […] [I]n them days they did not attind to the comforts o' the people at all, but put them into a cart, all as one as a conthrairy pig goin' to the market, and stravaiged them through the town to the gallows, that was full half a mile beyant it; […]
      Used to describe transporting people on a winding path through a town.]
    • 1896, J[ames] M[atthew] Barrie, “End of the Jacobite Rising”, in Sentimental Tommy: The Story of His Boyhood, London; Paris: Cassell and Company […], →OCLC, page 341:
      Innes, stravaiging the square and wynds in his apple-cart, jingled his weights in vain, unable to shake even moneyed children off their stools; […]
    • 1949, Drayton Mayrant, chapter 3, in The Running Thread, New York, N.Y.: Appleton-Century-Crofts, →OCLC, page 22:
      That I should live to see the time when me only daughter stravages the roads and hides behind stones in the night with a soldier!
    • c. 1954–1955 (date written; first published 1958), Samuel Beckett, “From an Abandoned Work”, in No’s Knife: Collected Shorter Prose 1945–1966, London: Calder and Boyars, published 1967, →OCLC, page 142:
      In a way perhaps it's a pity, a good woman might have been the making of me, I might be sprawling in the sun now sucking my pipe and patting the bottoms of the third and fourth generation, looked up to and respected, wondering what there was for dinner, instead of stravaging the same old roads in all weathers, I was never much of a one for new ground.
  2. (intransitive)
    1. To stroll or wander; to ramble, to roam.
      Synonyms: amble, gallivant, saunter
      • 1818, James Hogg, chapter I, in The Brownie of Bodsbeck; and Other Tales. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for William Blackwood, […]; London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 7:
        Dear gudeman, what has put it i'your head that our bairn stravaigs i'the night-time?
      • 1871, William Black, “Touching Certain Problems”, in A Daughter of Heth. […], 3rd edition, volume II, London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, […], →OCLC, page 85:
        Would you have an old woman like me stravaiging about the shore by myself?
      • 1876, Charlotte M[ary] Yonge, “The Drive to Backsworth”, in The Three Brides. […], volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 279:
        [A] real lady like you wouldn't go prying into what she's no call to, like that fine decked-out body, Duncombe's wife, which had best mind her own children, which it is a shame to see stravaging about the place!
      • 1921 March 9, A[lfred] E[dgar] Coppard, “Marching to Zion”, in Adam & Eve & Pinch Me: Tales, Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire: The Golden Cockerel Press; London: Birrell and Garnett, →OCLC, page 12:
        Whenever we came to any habitations now he would not call at back doors, nor go stravaiging in yards for odd pieces to eat, but he would go gallantly into an inn and offer his payment for the things we would like.
      • 1929, Elizabeth Bowen, chapter VIII, in The Last September, London: Jonathan Cape […], published 1960, →OCLC, part 1 (The Arrival of Mr. & Mrs. Montmorency), page 91:
        'Are your grandchildren well?' / 'They are,' said Connor gloomily, 'but they're very bashful. And they do be stravaiging about always and not contented at all. They are a great distress to herself, and she unable to come out after them.'
        Spelled stravaging in the 1st edition.
      • 1946, Rebecca West [pseudonym; Cicily Isabel Fairfield], “Greenhouse with Cyclamens I”, in A Train of Powder, New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, published March 1955, →OCLC, section 1, page 22:
        It is tedious work, training clematis over low posts, so that its beauty does not stravaig up the walls but lies open under the eye; but on the edge of the town many gardeners grew it thus.
      • 1964 August 27, Bill Walsh, Don DaGradi, Mary Poppins‎[1], spoken by Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews), Glendale, Calif.: Walt Disney Productions, →OCLC:
        Michael, stop stravaiging along behind.
      • 2016, Kate Blackadder, chapter 2, in A Time to Reap, Anstey, Leicestershire: Linford, F. A. Thorpe (Publishing), published 2017, →ISBN, page 15:
        Everyone knows Frank Robertson skives off work and stravaigs about the countryside breaking hearts.
      • 2017 November 26, Jamie Weir, “Final Edition: 2002–2017: KoS made a real difference”, in Chris Britcher, editor, Kent on Sunday, mid edition, number 792, Ashford, Kent: Archant Print, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 18, column 3:
        With a robust understanding of the county's big players, and in-depth knowledge of topics such as planning, I stravaged into the world of regional journalism with something of a swagger.
    2. (figurative) Of a river, road, etc.: to meander, to wind.
      • 1928, C[atherine] A[my] Dawson Scott, Oh! Foolish Kitty, London: Selwyn & Blount, →OCLC, pages 164–165:
        Down the main street goes the road, but a path stravaiges by fields and along the grey palings of Warren Manor.

Alternative forms

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

stravaig (plural stravaigs)

  1. (chiefly Ireland, Northern England, Scotland) An act of strolling or wandering aimlessly; a ramble, a stroll, a wander.
    Synonym: saunter
    • 1834 July, [John Wilson], “Noctes Ambrosianae. No. LXVI.”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume XXXVI, number CCXXIV, Edinburgh: William Blackwood; London: T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC, page 145:
      They cursed, they swore, they drank, they danced, they fought—first wi' whatever folk happened to fa' in wi' them on the stravaig—and then, castin' out amang theirsells, wi' ane anither, till they had a' three black een—and siccan noses!
      They cursed, they swore, they drank, they danced, they fought—first with whatever folk happened to fall in with them on the stravaig—and then, casting out among themselves, with one another, till they had all three black eyes—and such noses!
    • 1935, John Masefield, chapter III, in The Box of Delights: Or When the Wolves were Running, London: William Heinemann, published 1964, →OCLC, page 75:
      There's passages pretty near all under and round this city, to them who knows them. I've gone a dark stravage into pretty near every one first and last.
    • 1991, Peter Drummond, with assistance from Donald William Stewart, “Island Hills: The Main Peaks of Scotland’s Islands”, in Scottish Hill and Mountain Names: The Origin and Meaning of the Names of Scotland’s Hills and Mountains, Glasgow: Scottish Mountaineering Trust, →ISBN, page 155:
      Our stravaig around Skye's Norse and Gaelic hills could end with a consideration of one of the Cuillins' finest peaks, Sgùrr nan Gillean, a saw-toothed array of rock spires, known as Pinnacle Ridge, leading to a sharp point, highlight of the view from Sligachan.

Alternative forms

Translations

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 “stravaig, v., n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.
  2. ^ “stravaig, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2025; “stravaig, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  3. ^ “vaig, v., n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.
  4. ^ “† extravage”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023.
  5. ^ Compare “extravagate, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2025.
  6. ^ “extravagate, v.”, in Collins English Dictionary.

Further reading

Anagrams

Scots

Etymology

Probably an aphetic form of English extravage (“(obsolete, rare) to go beyond the scope of something, digress; to talk wildly, ramble”),[1] influenced by Scots vaig (“to wander idly, roam”).[2][3] Extravage is a learned borrowing from Medieval Latin extrāvagārī (“to stray outside limits, wander”)[4] (whence extravagate), from Latin extrā (“beyond, outside of”, preposition) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁éǵʰs (“out”)) + vagārī[5][6] (the present active infinitive of vagor (“to ramble, roam, stroll about, wander”), from vagus (“rambling, roaming, strolling, wandering”) (further etymology uncertain) + -or (the first-person singular present passive indicative of -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs))).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /strɑˈveɡ/

Verb

stravaig (third-person singular simple present stravaigs, present participle stravaigin, simple past and past participle stravaigt)

  1. to stroll or wander aimlessly; to roam

Noun

stravaig (plural stravaigs)

  1. an act of strolling or wandering aimlessly

References

  1. ^ Compare “stravaig, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2025; “stravaig, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  2. ^ “vaig, v., n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.
  3. ^ “stravaig, v., n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.
  4. ^ “† extravage”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023.
  5. ^ Compare “extravagate, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2025.
  6. ^ Compare “extravagate, v.”, in Collins English Dictionary.
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