How to Use vagrant in a Sentence

vagrant

1 of 2 noun
  • But this man didn’t look like a vagrant.
    — Katie Jackson, Outside, 19 Mar. 2026
  • Not long ago, vagrants stole my sister’s bikes.
    — Krista Kafer, Denver Post, 19 Aug. 2025
  • Two local villages have built pens, filled with hay, to lure any vagrants.
    — Catherine Porter, BostonGlobe.com, 15 Apr. 2023
  • Beggars and vagrants were a common sight.
    — Literary Hub, 9 Dec. 2025
  • Please don’t glorify a homeless vagrant who has nowhere to go.
    — Dan Koeppel, Outside Online, 5 Sep. 2019
  • Rumors that the fire was sparked by vagrants have not been proven, Murphy said.
    — Shelly Bradbury, Denver Post, 6 Jan. 2026
  • Drug dealers and vagrants have also taken notice of the house, which has been vacant for more than a decade.
    — Phillip Morris, cleveland, 20 Oct. 2019
  • The 35-year-old vagrant then grabbed the child, picked him up and threw him to the concrete, slamming his face on the ground, police said.
    — Fox News, 11 Oct. 2019
  • Arundhati Roy identifies as a vagrant.
    — Madeline Leung Coleman, Vulture, 27 Aug. 2025
  • One of the speakers recalled when Vasquez, as a vicar, was asked by church members to shoo away a man outside the church who was viewed as a vagrant.
    — Elaine Ayala, ExpressNews.com, 24 Dec. 2019
  • Vagrancy laws recast former black slaves as vagrants in order to control or eject them from places they were deemed undesirable.
    — Dae Shik Kim Hawkins, The Atlantic, 28 June 2018
  • In the past, some vagrants were incarcerated for drug offenses.
    — Allysia Finley, WSJ, 28 June 2019
  • One mask depicts a frowning hobo with a 5 o'clock shadow that represents the aforementioned vagrant.
    — Randall Colburn, Entertainment Weekly, 15 Dec. 2025
  • This change, in Foucault’s account, introduced to those towns a new anxiety about vagrants and outsiders.
    — Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, The New Yorker, 27 Nov. 2019
  • The catacombs, long abused as a temporary home for vagrants and even as a handy storage space for the church’s janitors, had been cleaned up some, but still were in rough shape.
    — Chris Kaltenbach, baltimoresun.com, 31 Oct. 2019
  • The man appeared to be a vagrant and was subsequently given a courtesy ride to a location in Willoughby.
    — Andy Attina / Cleveland.com, cleveland.com, 6 Sep. 2017
  • At the beach their son, Jason, wanders off and encounters a vagrant standing near that same funhouse, his fingers dripping with blood.
    — Taylor Antrim, Vogue, 21 Mar. 2019
  • Research has demonstrated that the long-term impact of a single avian vagrant can in fact, be ecologically profound.
    — New York Times, 7 Apr. 2022
  • Media have reported the rounding up of vagrants and the suspension of leisure facilities.
    — Time, 3 Mar. 2020
  • Many of the vagrants used the public library’s restrooms to relieve themselves—and to shoot up with heroin, often leaving their needles behind.
    — Allysia Finley, WSJ, 11 May 2018
  • Gun stalls sit alongside tchotchke stands and food trucks; locals dance, scream and fight, while news reports warn of a psychotic vagrant roaming the streets naked and stabbing random strangers.
    — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Apr. 2023
  • Garner, for instance, was consistently portrayed in the media as this pseudo vagrant who just sold loose cigarettes.
    — Ryan Smith, Chicago Reader, 24 Oct. 2017
  • But Boring's members complain that the vagrants who were outside the shelter moved into their entryways and stairwells.
    — Author: Charles Wohlforth | Opinion, Anchorage Daily News, 21 Feb. 2018
  • Citizen Ruth is about a paint-huffing vagrant who has been arrested 16 times and given birth to four children, all of whom were seized by the state.
    — Matthew Jacobs, Vulture, 2 Dec. 2021
  • Simpson was able to grab the gun away from the vagrant, Joseph Spataro, who was charged with firing a weapon while intoxicated and trespassing.
    — Madeleine Marr, miamiherald, 11 Apr. 2018
  • Simpson faced no charges; the vagrant, Joseph Spataro, was charged with firing a weapon while intoxicated and trespassing.
    — Madeleine Marr, miamiherald, 11 June 2018
  • In recent years, 7-Eleven stores have taken to driving vagrants away by blaring classical music, including opera.
    — Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 12 Apr. 2023
  • Sadly, the reason bus shelters are disappearing is that the city does not wish to provide seating for homeless people or other kinds of vagrants who may congregate there.
    — Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 3 Jan. 2026
  • Crews also found food packages, clothing, alcohol, cigarettes and drugs -- evidence of vagrants, Holmes said.
    — Beau Evans, NOLA.com, 12 June 2017
  • Those in the program are guaranteed only one face-to-face contact with a caseworker per month, even as drug users, pushers and vagrants frequent their buildings through front doors with broken locks.
    — Steve Thompson, Washington Post, 8 Aug. 2023

vagrant

2 of 2 adjective
  • English roads teemed with men turned vagrant by penury; Spain was on the cusp of war.
    — Washington Post, 30 Dec. 2021
  • Some reports described him as a vagrant; others labeled him a drug dealer.
    — James E. Causey, jsonline.com, 20 Apr. 2022
  • Still, scientists don’t have a clear reason why these younger birds would leave more up to the wind, or how small errors could compound and lead to a vagrant bird.
    — Maddie Bender, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Nov. 2023
  • That Episode 5 car ride is arguably the series’ most crucial scene, and the dialogue about the vagrant bird its most poignant.
    — Chris O'Falt, IndieWire, 23 Oct. 2025
  • The two fall in love and a decade-and-a-half romance ensues, the only on-screen civility to be seen in an otherwise vagrant and collapsed society.
    — Allison Hope, CNN, 10 Feb. 2023
  • The group aged each bird by their appearance and found that vagrant, or birds that fly outside of their range, were always adolescents, per Science News.
    — Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 Nov. 2021
  • Somehow a vagrant shrew (the only type of shrew found on Whidbey, this one living up to its name) had entered their home, seemingly asking to be counted.
    — Kathryn True, The Seattle Times, 8 June 2017
  • Though provocative on their own, these vagrant personal dramas don’t hook together into a coherent pattern.
    — Sam Sacks, WSJ, 1 Sep. 2017
  • Alternatively, some scientists think vagrant birds like Stella could be the pioneers of a species exploring new habitats.
    — Marina Wang, Smithsonian Magazine, 23 Aug. 2022
  • Synonyms for beggar include hobo, pauper, tramp, vagrant, derelict, mendicant, bum, supplicant, deadbeat, borrower.
    — Stephen Miller, WSJ, 11 Oct. 2021
  • Much of the book’s power comes from its exploration of Lovato’s own wide-ranging life experiences, from child bookworm to teen vagrant to revolucionario to independent scholar and activist.
    — Laura Weiss, The New Republic, 21 Oct. 2020
  • Beyond the initial rush of birders packing restaurants and accommodations, the draw of vagrant birds could turn avian enthusiasts into repeat visitors, with long-term economic benefits.
    — Marina Wang, Smithsonian Magazine, 23 Aug. 2022
  • While the Millennial Belafonte may proclaim this vagrant hope, Seldom Seen conveyed its spiritual cost.
    — Armond White, National Review, 11 Mar. 2020
  • Researchers suspect these vagrant neutrophils release neutrophil elastase and other molecules at the wrong spots, including the lungs, causing the tissue damage seen in COPD.
    — Mitch Leslie, Science | AAAS, 5 Mar. 2020
  • The commissioner had heard screaming, looked outside and saw a father pushing a baby in a stroller accompanied by another toddler moving away from a person the witness described as a vagrant, who was following them with a brick, Krepp said.
    — Washington Post, 19 Dec. 2021
  • Dreamlike and deliberate, pedestrian and theatrical, bland and strangely beautiful, ‘About Endlessness’ takes in the suffering, struggle and moments of vagrant joy in life and propels them into the cosmos.
    — Mark Olsen Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 30 Apr. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'vagrant.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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