stray

Examples

• All

• Yeah, but you do happen to have a little stray gray hair there.

  Bridget Jones's Baby (2016)

• Get that stray bit of pineapple off my slice.

  Matthew Hussey

• So you have to consider all of those and then the stray light sources.

• Maybe we can detect stray radiation after all.

  Sabine Hossenfelder

• Stray ash...fell and caught those newspapers on fire...

  Guilty as Sin (1993)

• Was some sliver of stray light being reflected from an object on his bench?

  Academic text (1995)

• Up Linden Street hill, across empty intersections, around stray dogs, looking, looking.

  Fiction book (1997)

• The in-and-out boxes were swept clean of any stray dust particles, any scrap of trash.

  Fiction book (1997)

• A few days before, it had been happily crowded with lights, presents, and stray scraps of wrapping paper.

  Fiction book (1994)

• The museum displayed a few stray artifacts found in the surrounding area.

Synonyms

I

isolated

vsstray

91 4.5

Happening rarely and not close to other events

describes single scattered items rather than general rarity or separateness

S

sporadic

vsstray

34 7.0

Happening sometimes and in different places

refers to single occurrences appearing alone in time or place

S

sparse

vsstray

32 5.0

Present in small numbers or amounts

refer to single instances spread apart rather than low overall density

S

scattered

vsstray

19 3.6

Not in order and difficult to understand or use

mean separate single occurrences, not general disorder or lack of order

Antonyms

C

clustered

19 4.1

Close together in one small area

C

consolidated

15 4.9

Combined into one unit from separate parts

Compounds

S

stray cat

12 1.3

A cat that has no owner and lives outside

How Frequent

constant

525 2.5

frequent

234 1.0

occasional

257 2.8

sporadic

34 7.0

stray

48 4.3

isolated

91 4.5

Surface Forms

Etymology