The AI-powered English dictionary
plural estrays
(law) An animal that has escaped from its owner; a wandering animal whose owner is unknown. An animal cannot be an estray when on the range where it was raised, and permitted by its owner to run. A lost animal whose owner is known to the party at hand is not an estray. examples
(archaic) Stray. quotations
[...] All the day / Had been a dreary one at best, and dim / Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim / Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.
1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section VIII
third-person singular simple present estrays, present participle estraying, simple past and past participle estrayed
(archaic) To stray. quotations
With other Maids to fiſh upon the Shoar; Estrays apart, and leaves her Company
1614, Samuel Daniel, Hymen's Triumph