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Vagrant vs Transient - What's the difference?

vagrant | transient |

As nouns the difference between vagrant and transient

is that vagrant is a person without a home or job while transient is something which is transient.

As adjectives the difference between vagrant and transient

is that vagrant is moving without certain direction; wandering; erratic; unsettled while transient is passing or disappearing with time; transitory.

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

    transient

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Passing or disappearing with time; transitory.
  • a transient pleasure
  • * Milton
  • this transient world
  • Remaining for only a brief time.
  • a transient view of a landscape
  • (physics) Decaying with time, especially exponentially.
  • (mathematics, stochastic processes, of a state) having a positive probability of being left and never being visited again.
  • Occasional; isolated; one-off; individual.
  • Passing through; passing from one person to another.
  • (philosophy) Operating beyond itself; having an external effect.
  • Synonyms

    * (passing) passing, transitory, temporary * (brief) brief, ephemeral, fleeting, flighty, fugacious

    Antonyms

    * (passing) permanent * (brief) permanent * (mathematics) recurrent * (philosophy) immanent

    Derived terms

    * transience * transiently * transientness

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Something which is transient.
  • (physics) A transient phenomenon, especially an electric current; a very brief surge.
  • (acoustics) A relatively loud, non-repeating signal in an audio waveform which occurs very quickly, such as the attack of a snare drum.
  • A person who passes through a place for a short time; a traveller; a migrant worker
  • * 1996 , , Oyster , Virago Press, paperback edition, page 3
  • Then, within the space of a few months, there were more transients than there were locals, and the imbalance seemed morally wrong.
  • An unhoused person
  • Synonyms

    * (4) traveller: itinerant, migrant, traveller * (5) homeless: homeless

    Anagrams

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