VAGABOND

[Dr. Goodword]

• vagabond •

Pronunciation: væg-ê-bahnd • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun, Adjective

Meaning: A wanderer, vagrant, itinerant with no permanent home.

Notes: I don't hear this word as much as I did in my youth, perhaps because the vagrant life is no longer with us. Even the homeless have a more or less stable place to sleep each night; a vagabond doesn't. The word seems to have left us before we could decide whether the vagabond life is vagabondage or vagabondism. Somehow I find the latter less suggestive.

In Play: The most popular song of the world's first crooner, Rudy Vallee, was 'I'm Just a Vagabond Lover', a song about a gypsy in love. It appeared in his film, Vagabond Lover, released in 1929, a time when many gypsies and hobos roamed the US. Although today's word is a noun, it is often used as an adjective: "Billy brings home every vagabond dog that wanders through the neighborhood."

Word History: English borrowed this word from French without changing it. French inherited it from Latin vagabundus "wandering, strolling", made up of vagari "to wander" plus the gerundive suffix -bundus "-ing". We aren't sure where vagari came from but we do know where it went from Latin. English adopted it directly, as vagary "an erratic, unpredictable move". Vagari was derived from vagus "wandering". This word went on to become vague in French, where English borrowed it, too. Its meaning apparently originated in a sense of wandering off course. (It is time to abandon this vagabond narrative and focus on thanking Sara Goldman for suggesting today's unfortunately fading Good Word.)

[LukeJavan8]

Reminds me of one of my favorite songs
(from back in the Glee Club days of yore):
THE HAPPY WANDERER.


I love to go a-wandering,
Along the mountain track,
And as I go, I love to sing,
My knapsack on my back.
Chorus:
Val-deri,Val-dera,
Val-deri,
Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Val-deri,Val-dera.
My knapsack on my back.

I love to wander by the stream
That dances in the sun,
So joyously it calls to me,
"Come! Join my happy song!"

I wave my hat to all I meet,
And they wave back to me,
And blackbirds call so loud and sweet
From ev'ry green wood tree.

High overhead, the skylarks wing,
They never rest at home
But just like me, they love to sing,
As o'er the world we roam.

Oh, may I go a-wandering
Until the day I die!
Oh, may I always laugh and sing,
Beneath God's clear blue sky!

[dennism12a]

It's hard to believe that people anywhere actually use this. Did people really use to ? I have never seen or heard of such a usage before.

[LukeJavan8]

You have me confused as to what you cannot believe:
the use of the song, the word vagabond, or something
altogether different. We do not appreciate advertising
on this site, however, and of that I am sure.