Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🚶 To wander 🐾 A lost animal 🐾 Without a home 💬 To digress 🎈 Scattered
to stray

to stray

26 4.0
To move away from the main topic when speaking or writing
  • verb
  • /streɪ/
translation icon : divagar
  • If we stray too far from the topic, we may lose the audience's interest.
  • stray off topic
  • stray from the norm

Don't, don't, don't stray away from the process.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • And the left can pretty easily start straying into this.

    Philosophy Tube

  • Don't stray from that path.

    The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

  • Did we stray off topic here?

    The Con Artist (2010)

  • But it is a mistake both moral and practical to stray into that sort of bad thinking.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • I might have strayed from my notes a little bit.

    Analyze That (2002)

  • Here again, the record of aid in practice has strayed far from theory.

    Academic text (1998)

  • We strayed from the formula, and we paid the price.

    ¡Three Amigos! (1986)

  • Teachers who are caught straying from the state religious education curriculum may lose their jobs.

    Academic text (2008)

  • Consequently, participants remained focused on their academic goals and avoided straying from academics as their number one priority.

    Academic text (2006)

  • There were movements that strayed from the central tenets of mainstream political Zionism.

    Academic text (2011)

Synonyms

to wander
vsto stray
50 3.3

Lose focus or go off the main subject

is specifically about moving away from the topic in speech or writing rather than losing focus
to digress
vsto stray
22 6.8

To start talking about something else for a short time

is broader movement away, not necessarily a brief or temporary pause
to go off on tangents
vsto stray
  • Informal
1 7.0

To start talking about things not related to the main subject

can mean any movement away from the topic, not only jumps to loosely related subjects
to divagate
vsto stray
  • Archaic
9.9

To wander away from the main subject when speaking or writing

is the common, neutral term for leaving the main topic rather than a formal word
to fly off at a tangent
vsto stray
  • Informal
8.9

To suddenly start talking about a different subject

can describe slower or less abrupt departures from the main topic rather than sudden shifts

Antonyms

to stay on track
9 3.2

To focus on a goal without getting distracted

Compounds

stray cat
7 1.3

A cat that has no owner and lives outside

How Focused

to get to the point
  • Informal
126 3.1
to stray
26 4.0
to digress
22 6.8
to ramble
  • Informal
48 5.3

Surface Forms

stray infinitive
strayed past
strayed past participle
straying present participle
strays third person singular

Etymology

The verb stray originally meant 'to wander', and a helpful way to remember this is to imagine a talk as a path—when you stray from the subject, your words have walked away from the main idea.