[f. VAGABOND sb. + -AGE, or a. F. vagabondage (1798).]
1. The state, condition, or character of a vagabond; life or conduct characteristic of or resembling that of a vagabond; idle or unconventional wandering or travelling; vagabondism.
1813. [implied in Vagabondager: see below].
1823. New Monthly Mag., VIII. 336. That love of … bird’s-nesting and vagabondage, which … is inherent in all boys.
1858. Times, 4 Nov., 6/2. They [the Ionians] have been elevated from the lowest grade of Mediterranean vagabondage to be citizens of the richest and freest empire in the world.
1871. Holme Lee, Miss Barrington, I. vii. 102. Spring arrived and he grew restless again and betook himself to vagabondage and the streets.
fig. 1863. Lecky, in Mem. (1909), II. 34. I have been indulging in an enormous amount of literary vagabondage.
1871. Miss Braddon, Lovels of Arden, xxii. 171. Her random sketches—some of them mere vagabondage of the pencil, jotted down half unconsciously.
2. Vagabonds collectively; persons of a vagabond class or order.
1855. [J. D. Burn], Autobiogr. Beggar Boy (1859), 137. One of the immediate consequences of their conduct would be, to let loose the whole vagabondage of the country.
1903. Times, 14 Feb., 11/5. They are already bringing a good deal of rural vagabondage to London.
Hence Vagabondager, one who practises vagabondage.
1813. Sir R. Wilson, Priv. Diary (1862), II. 52. At midnight I entered my carriage, and found myself in solitude with a cheerless imagination…. Thus vagabondagers pay for their temporary pleasures.
