straying

Pluralstrayings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of stray.

   Ranchers put up new fences to keep straying cattle off the highway.

   You're straying from the topic again, so let's get back to the budget.

   Note

   Two frames carry most uses. Before a noun it marks animals that have wandered loose, as in straying cattle or wire netting put up to stop straying animals. After be, usually with from, it describes a drift away from a path or a subject: you're straying from the topic. Turning away from duty or from what is right is the same movement, measured against a moral line.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of going astray, whether a deviation or a sin, and often sexual infidelity.

   The marriage survived his straying, though it took years of counseling.

   The preacher warned the congregation that small strayings from the truth lead to larger ones.

   Similardeviation, infidelity, lapse

   Note

   Said of a partner without an article, as in the marriage survived his straying, it names infidelity without spelling it out. The plural suits moral and religious writing, where each lapse is counted: Adena Tanenbaum's The Contemplative Soul (2002) describes a soul whose strayings from the straight and narrow are a descent into the defiling world of the body.

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