What's the difference between stray and vague?

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.

Vague


Definition:

  • (v. i.) Wandering; vagrant; vagabond.
  • (v. i.) Unsettled; unfixed; undetermined; indefinite; ambiguous; as, a vague idea; a vague proposition.
  • (v. i.) Proceeding from no known authority; unauthenticated; uncertain; flying; as, a vague report.
  • (n.) An indefinite expanse.
  • (v. i.) To wander; to roam; to stray.
  • (n.) A wandering; a vagary.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In view of its infrequent and vague presentation, care is required to avoid overlooking the diagnosis of abdominal tuberculosis, particularly in the immigrant population.
  • (2) Congenital defect of a cervical pedicle produces a rare clinical syndrome with a characteristic X-ray picture associated with vague clinical signs often accentuated after trauma.
  • (3) Such an explanation not only remains vague and speculative but deserves criticism also for being incomplete.
  • (4) What are New York values?” he asked the crowd, alluding to Cruz’s vague denigration of those “liberal” values in a January debate.
  • (5) Chronic idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) is an autoimmune disorder in which the abnormality in cellular immunity has remained only vaguely defined.
  • (6) The family physician who sees many children with vague abdominal pain must include peptic ulcer disease in the differential diagnosis.
  • (7) The remaining patients had vague pains, tender abdomen, constitutional symptoms or a mass in the abdomen.
  • (8) The system was "flawed" and the rules were "vague".
  • (9) The Japanese preferred alternative was to give a vague alternative diagnosis such as neurasthenia.
  • (10) Veering between a patronising video , a vague report and impenetrable financial data does not amount to openness and accountability.
  • (11) "In addition, the Department for Communities and Local Government [DCLG] has failed to provide the council with any cost estimates for the audit apart from the vague statement that costs are likely to be 'within £1m'.
  • (12) The diagnosis of leptospirosis is often difficult to make because of vague and mild symptoms.
  • (13) Since the day of action was announced, there has been a new mood in the group; some people talk somewhat vaguely about Tunisia and Egypt; mass protest is in the air.
  • (14) A case is reported where pneumoperitoneum developed after the surgical procedure with vague abdominal symptoms accompanied by fever and leukocytosis.
  • (15) This feature of ILC may also help explain why tumors may be palpable as areas of vague induration or thickening rather than as discrete masses.
  • (16) A 57-year-old man was admitted with the complaints of vague headache and left upper limb numbness.
  • (17) Polling suggests that people prefer the Conservatives on immigration because they expect them to be "tougher" in some vague, generic sense, rather than because they believe in their policies.
  • (18) As biological discharge phenomena evolve into vague psychological awareness, such an infant does not attain a sense of well-being, but rather attains a sense of "not-well-being" (Joffe and Sandler, 1965) which remains continuous or can be triggered--kindled--by any reactivating constellation, and the object is experienced as a source of unpleasure.
  • (19) The only time I see him in even vague bad humour is when a wardrobe assistant tries to neaten a dancer's hair.
  • (20) The concept of fuzzy sets was chosen for its ability to represent classes of objects that are vaguely described from the measured data.