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Derelict vs Vagrant - What's the difference?

derelict | vagrant |

As adjectives the difference between derelict and vagrant

is that derelict is abandoned, forsake; given up or forsaken by the natural owner or guardian; (of a ship) abandoned at sea, dilapidated, neglected; (of a spacecraft) abandoned in outer space while vagrant is moving without certain direction; wandering; erratic; unsettled.

As nouns the difference between derelict and vagrant

is that derelict is property abandoned by its former owner, especially a ship abandoned at sea while vagrant is a person without a home or job.

derelict

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Abandoned, forsake; given up or forsaken by the natural owner or guardian; (of a ship) abandoned at sea, dilapidated, neglected; (of a spacecraft) abandoned in outer space.
    • There was a derelict ship on the island.
  • * Jeremy Taylor
    • The affections which these exposed or derelict children bear to their mothers, have no grounds of nature or assiduity but civility and opinion.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , title=When and where did NASA's derelict satellite go down? citation
  • Negligent in performing a duty.
  • Lost; adrift; hence, wanting; careless; neglectful; unfaithful.
  • * Burke
    • They easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends; and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy.
  • * John Buchanan
    • A government which is either unable or unwilling to redress such wrongs is derelict to its highest duties.

    Synonyms

    * (abandoned) abandoned

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Property abandoned by its former owner, especially a ship abandoned at sea.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1907 , title=(The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses) , author=Robert W. Service , chapter=(The Cremation of Sam McGee) , passage=Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; / It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May". / And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; / Then "Here", said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."}}
  • (dated) An abandoned or forsaken person; an outcast.
  • * 1911 Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax” (Norton 2005, p.1364):
    • A rather pathetic figure, the Lady Frances, a beautiful woman, still in fresh middle age, and yet, by a strange chance, the last derelict of what only twenty years ago was a goodly fleet.
  • A homeless and/or jobless person; a person who is (perceived as) negligent in their personal affairs and hygiene.
  • * 1988 , Jonathan D. Spence, The Question of Hu :
    • As they hunt, the Archers and Duval find many derelicts and ne'er-do-wells in many parts of Paris.
  • * 2002 , in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of D. H. Lawrence'', ''The Boy in the Bush , edited by Paul Eggert, page 22:
    • If they're lazy derelicts and ne'er-do-wells she'll eat 'em up. But she's waiting for real men — British to the bone —
  • * 2004 , Katherine V. W. Stone, From Widgets to Digits: Employment Regulation , page 280:
    • We see the distinction at work when victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks are treated more generously than derelicts and drug addicts.

    See also

    * flotsam * jetsam * lagan * salvage

    vagrant

    English

    (wikipedia vagrant)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A person without a home or job.
  • * 2002 , , WIGU: Day two begins
    • Paisley: What smells like dinosaur crap?
    Mother: Your brother wants people to think we’re vagrants .
    Wigu: I stink.
  • A wanderer.
    • Every morning before work, I see that poor vagrant around the neighborhood begging for food.
  • (ornithology) A bird found outside its species’ usual range.

    • Synonyms

    * beggar * down-and-out * drifter * itinerant * tramp * wanderer * vagabond * See also

    Derived terms

    * vagrancy

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Moving without certain direction; wandering; erratic; unsettled.
  • * Prior
    • That beauteous Emma vagrant courses took.
  • * Macaulay
    • While leading this vagrant and miserable life, Johnson fell in love.
  • Wandering from place to place without any settled habitation.
    • a vagrant beggar