Dictionary

vagrance en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (archaic, uncountable) Vagrancy, wandering.
   • 1601, John Legat, printer to the University of Cambridge (publisher), Ease for Overseers of the Poore: Abstracted from the Statutes https://books.google.com/books?id=vJ7ZgWitKDsC&pg=PP5&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false […] but as they have wavering and straying mindes, so they will have wandering and unstaid bodies, which will sooner be disposed to vagrance than activitie, to idlenesse than to worke.
   • Locke […] urged the necessity of a trade to men of all ranks and professions, that when the mind is weary with its proper task, it may be relaxed by a slighter attention to some mechanical operation; and that while the vital functions are resuscitated and awakened by vigorous motion, the understanding may be restrained from that vagrance and dissipation by which it relieves itself after a long intenseness of thought, unless some allurement be presented that may engage application without anxiety. 1801, Samuel Johnson, The Rambler^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rambler_(1)):
   • 1913, Carl Shurz (Frederic Bancroft editor), Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Peace_%E2%80%94_a_Solid,_Durable_Peace Here vagrance laws were enacted calculated to tie the colored laborer to his late owner by the most arbitrary legal obligations.