What's the difference between stray and wayward?

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.

Wayward


Definition:

  • (a.) Taking one's own way; disobedient; froward; perverse; willful.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Advancing to the edge of the Ireland penalty area, he tries to pick out Thierry Henry, but his pass is wayward and a panic-stricken, back-pedalling Ireland defence clears.
  • (2) Chelsea's only attacking response in the opening stages was a wayward shot from Lampard, who was to score the equaliser in the 17th minute in a manner that would have concerned Poyet, whose reaction to his team's goal had been subdued.
  • (3) Could Fifty Shades of Grey, with a smart female director at the helm, usher in a new era of movies for lusty, grown-up women, even if its trashy reputation and wayward use of cable ties might not seem to be the fertile ground from which this might spring?
  • (4) Since 2000, Ray Lewis has developed the persona of the wayward youth turned gospel preacher, a big reason why he has been able to end his career as a respected, at least in the game, 17-year-veteran who ended his career with a Super Bowl win with the only team he's ever played for, a team that very few people thought was good enough to get this far.
  • (5) Alexa arrived out of the blue with her band of wayward girls.
  • (6) It is a more thoughtful book, but it also prefigures Clark's seeming obsession with the wayward lives of teenagers, which has since become the central theme of his films, most controversially Kids, and later books like 2008's Los Angeles Vol 1 , in which he trails a bunch of skater kids from Compton, east Los Angeles.
  • (7) For the fifth goal, Tomas Rosicky played a wayward pass from the right-back position and Oscar simply took the ball and stuck a right-foot shot past the unimpressive dive of Wojciech Szczesny.
  • (8) I will talk to the board and the players, I’m angry about what happened.” In addition to indiscipline, Southampton were undone here by wayward finishing.
  • (9) A wayward attempt but QPR will be pleased to see Austin seizing the initiative and being positive.
  • (10) "We must sharpen the edge" of the rules to keep wayward governments in line and consider revising the 1992 treaty that laid the groundwork for the shared currency, Reuters reported Merkel as saying.
  • (11) Hanging there with its streamlined folds of metal, like a wayward chunk ripped from a Frank Gehry building, Slipstream is a radical departure from the artist's previous work.
  • (12) Liverpool also want Aston Villa's purveyor of wayward crosses Ashley Young and will obviously need a muscular, ponytail-sporting Geordie to get on the end of them; step forward £30m-rated Newcastle United No9 Andy Carroll .
  • (13) Borgen's Sidse Babett Knudsen stars with Chiara d'Anna (Berberian) as an amateur butterfly expert whose "wayward desires test her lover's tolerance".
  • (14) West Coast kicked a wayward 11.21 in last week’s win over Collingwood .
  • (15) Gómez’s long-range, wayward shot took a telling touch off the unwitting Graham’s heel.
  • (16) Mutch put them ahead in the ninth minute, after Campbell capitalised on Joe Allen's wayward pass, and although Liverpool equalised through Suárez, following a fine move involving Glen Johnson and Jordan Henderson, Cardiff were soon back in front.
  • (17) I’m finding it impossible not to be optimistic because it feels like we have reached a tipping point, like this shift has become unstoppable,” he says looking back on a lifetime of COPs like a parent assessing a wayward child who’s somehow turned out OK despite everything.
  • (18) Yet Klopp still managed to be a breath of fresh air, a ball of pent-up fury when Liverpool were wayward in the early exchanges, a beaming, tracksuited, slightly messy creator of happiness and fun when they romped away with the points thanks to late goals from Coutinho and Benteke.
  • (19) But the US might have expected more from Bradley – who was a curiously peripheral figure for much of the night and whose wayward passes from some of the warm-up games carried into the first World Cup match.
  • (20) Agbonlahor delivered the final blow, running on to a wayward pass from the substitute David Vaughan before sashaying round Mignolet and putting the ball into the net.