Noun

(en noun)

(obsolete) Goods found of which the owner is not known; originally, such goods as a pursued thief threw away to prevent being apprehended, which belonged to the king unless the owner made pursuit of the felon, took him, and brought him to justice.

(obsolete) Hence, anything found, or without an owner; that which comes along, as it were, by chance.

A wanderer; a castaway; a stray; a homeless child.

* 1912 : (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 5

Tenderly Kala nursed her little waif , wondering silently why it did not gain strength and agility as did the little apes of other mothers. It was nearly a year from the time the little fellow came into her possession before he would walk alone, and as for climbing--my, but how stupid he was!

A plant that has been introduced but is not persistently naturalized.

Noun

(en noun)

A ghost or specter, especially seen just after a person's death.

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* {{quote-book

, year=1917 , year_published=2008 , edition=HTML , editor= , author=Edgar Rice Burroughs , title=A Princess of Mars , chapter= citation , genre= , publisher=The Gutenberg Project , isbn= , page= , passage=We might indeed have been the wraiths of the departed dead upon the dead sea of that dying planet for all the sound or sign we made in passing. }}

* {{quote-book, passage=Like wraiths with the impediments of bodies they stumbled in the direction of Salthill faces.

, title=Middle Age: A Romance , year=2001 , author= , publisher=Fourth Estate , edition=paperback , page=80}} '>citation '>citation '>citation '>citation