What's the difference between lost and stray?

Lost


Definition:

  • (v. t.) Parted with unwillingly or unintentionally; not to be found; missing; as, a lost book or sheep.
  • (v. t.) Parted with; no longer held or possessed; as, a lost limb; lost honor.
  • (v. t.) Not employed or enjoyed; thrown away; employed ineffectually; wasted; squandered; as, a lost day; a lost opportunity or benefit.
  • (v. t.) Having wandered from, or unable to find, the way; bewildered; perplexed; as, a child lost in the woods; a stranger lost in London.
  • (v. t.) Ruined or destroyed, either physically or morally; past help or hope; as, a ship lost at sea; a woman lost to virtue; a lost soul.
  • (v. t.) Hardened beyond sensibility or recovery; alienated; insensible; as, lost to shame; lost to all sense of honor.
  • (v. t.) Not perceptible to the senses; no longer visible; as, an island lost in a fog; a person lost in a crowd.
  • (v. t.) Occupied with, or under the influence of, something, so as to be insensible of external things; as, to be lost in thought.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) On removal of selective pressure, the His+ phenotype was lost more readily than the Ura+ Trp+ markers, with a corresponding decrease in plasmid copy number.
  • (2) Significant amounts of 35S-labeled material were lost during the alkali treatment.
  • (3) Having been knocked out of the League Cup and Cup Winners' Cup before Christmas, they lost an FA Cup fourth-round replay at West Brom on 1 February.
  • (4) While they may always be encumbered by censorship in a way that HBO is not, the success of darker storylines, antiheroes and the occasional snow zombie will not be lost in an entertainment industry desperate to maintain its share of the audience.
  • (5) "David Cameron has lost control of what's happening in the NHS.
  • (6) As of November, 1988 after a median observation period of 34 months, 174 of the 256 patients (68%) were alive, 11 (4%) dead and 71 (28%) lost to follow-up.
  • (7) My thoughts are with all those who have lost loved ones or been injured in this barbaric attack.
  • (8) Significant side-effects occurred infrequently and only 2 children lost weight during the period of medication.
  • (9) Relative to the perceived severity of their asthma, both Maoris and Pacific Islanders lost more time from work or school and used hospital services more than European asthmatics using A & E. The increased use of A & E by Maori and Pacific Island asthmatics seemed not attributable to the intrinsic severity of their asthma and was better explained by ethnic, socioeconomic and sociocultural factors.
  • (10) Mendl's candy colours contrast sharply with the gothic garb of our hero's enemies and the greys of the prison uniforms – as well as scenes showing the hotel later, in the 1960s, its opulence lost beneath a drab communist refurb.
  • (11) What shouldn't get lost among the hits, home runs and the intentional and semi-intentional walks is that Ortiz finally seems comfortable with having a leadership role with his team.
  • (12) How big tobacco lost its final fight for hearts, lungs and minds Read more Shares in Imperial closed down 1% and British American Tobacco lost 0.75%, both underperforming the FTSE100’s 0.3% decline.
  • (13) From the treatment group 23 patients could be assessed: 2 had discontinued clean intermittent self-catheterization due to urethral hemorrhage, 2 died during the observation period and 1 was lost to followup.
  • (14) Size comparison of the newly discovered Msp I fragment with a restriction map of the apolipoprotein A-I gene revealed that most likely the cutting site at the 5'-end of the normally seen 673 bp fragment is lost giving rise to the observed 719 bp Msp I fragment.
  • (15) Another, discussing public attitudes towards the police, said: "I've lost count of [the number of] people who said: 'It's only cos you've got a uniform … if you didn't have the uniform on, I'd come and fuck you and this, that and the other … I hope your wife dies of cancer and your kids die of cancer.'"
  • (16) Co2+ partially restored the activities lost by chelation.
  • (17) The mean of the total daily energy intake was 104% of basal energy expenditure (BEE), and 70% of patients lost their weight.
  • (18) A lesser inhibitory effect (a decrease in the rate of precipitation) was observed when gallbladder bile was diluted but was lost after 10-fold dilution.
  • (19) Of the protein that did enter the gel, the higher MW species elicited banding patterns similar to patterns observed under reducing conditions, whereas lower MW IgE binding bands were lost.
  • (20) After cessation of exposures, HEVal was lost faster than predicted by the normal erythrocyte life span alone.

Stray


Definition:

  • (a.) To wander, as from a direct course; to deviate, or go out of the way.
  • (a.) To wander from company, or from the proper limits; to rove at large; to roam; to go astray.
  • (a.) Figuratively, to wander from the path of duty or rectitude; to err.
  • (v. t.) To cause to stray.
  • (v. i.) Having gone astray; strayed; wandering; as, a strayhorse or sheep.
  • (n.) Any domestic animal that has an inclosure, or its proper place and company, and wanders at large, or is lost; an estray. Used also figuratively.
  • (n.) The act of wandering or going astray.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Stray bottles were thrown over the barriers towards officers to cheers and chants of: “Shame on you, we’re human too.” The Met deployed what it described as a “significant policing operation”, including drafting in thousands of extra officers to tackle expected unrest, after previous events ended in arrests and clashes with police across the centre of the capital.
  • (2) Until that point, Bravo had looked assured, often straying 30 yards off his goal-line and confident enough to try a couple of passes that many goalkeepers would consider too risky.
  • (3) Spatial distribution of the disease correlated with indirect EIA data on healthy urban population (3116 persons examined) and stray dogs (152 animals examined).
  • (4) At peak times 1,300 vehicles an hour will use the lanes, with non-Olympic motorists fined £130 if they stray into them.
  • (5) The helicopter strayed more than a mile into Turkish airspace, but crashed inside Syria after being hit by missiles fired from the jet, Turkish officials said at the time.
  • (6) Guardiola has ever-so-slightly strayed away from what has made Barcelona so brilliant now, and there are certainly questions to be asked about how Busquets-Iniesta-Xavi triumvirate has been disrupted by Cesc Fabregas.
  • (7) Lula responded by insisting that his government would not stray from its quest to protect the Amazon and appointed another high-profile environmentalist, Green party founder Carlos Minc, as his new minister.
  • (8) "Stray bullets are part of my life here," says Jessica, a 17-year-old football coach.
  • (9) Hence stray voltage may threaten farm animal health and production wherever modern animal housing is applied.
  • (10) But in 14 years, the search for international justice in Africa has strayed far from the "never again" principle, and into the murkier waters of deals and fixes.
  • (11) Bedoya then strays offside on the other side of the pitch.
  • (12) In his search for a new economic model for the paper that would take it into a secure digital future, Thompson has been experimenting with innovations that appear to stray from his corporate bunker on the 16th floor of the Times building into the editorial realm.
  • (13) Turkey has said the jet mistakenly strayed into Syrian air space on Friday, but was quickly warned to leave by Turkish authorities and was a mile inside international airspace when it was shot down.
  • (14) You made sure that Mairead "stuck to the story", checking with her at every opportunity that she wasn't going to stray, as you put it.
  • (15) The laboratories without stray light problems reported results with less instrument-to-instrument variation, the results followed a symmetrical distribution, and the mean of the results provided an accurate estimate of the absorbance of the solutions.
  • (16) Others face more niggling problems: in a recent post on the local Facebook group “Eliminate All Stray Dogs”, one resident claimed an unruly pack kept jumping on his car, destroying its windscreen wipers.
  • (17) and other species in stool specimens from stray dogs and cats in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
  • (18) Up to 4.5 million Russians were already expected to change holiday plans after the Turkish military shot down a Russian jet that strayed into Turkish airspace on a bombing mission over Syria, and military operations against Kurdish insurgents in the south-east have added to a sense of crisis.
  • (19) Udall barely mentioned government surveillance on the campaign trail, choosing instead to mount a singular focus on female voters, rarely straying from two topics : contraception and abortion.
  • (20) The four people arrested in the Gloucestershire cull zone were held on suspicion of aggravated trespass after police responded to reports of horns being blown and individuals straying from a public footpath.

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