different between mosey vs straggle

English

Alternative forms

• mosy, mozey, mozy

Etymology

Unknown. Originally attested in Southern US dialects. Suggested origins include:

• Spanish vamos (compare vamoose)
• British dialectal mose about (“walk around stupidly”)
• an Algonquian term for "walk" (compare Ojibwe bimose (“she or he walks along”))

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?mo?.zi/

Verb

mosey (third-person singular simple present moseys, present participle moseying, simple past and past participle moseyed)

1. (chiefly US, dialectal) To set off, get going; to start a journey.
   • 1910, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Kilmeny of the Orchard, chapter 1:

     Haven't got time. I must mosey up to the North End to see a man who has got a lovely throat. Nobody can find out what is the matter. He has puzzled all the doctors.

2. (chiefly US, dialectal) To go off quickly: to hurry up.
3. (chiefly US, dialectal) To amble; to walk or proceed in a leisurely manner.
   • 1919, William MacLeod Raine, A Man Four-Square, chapter 6:

     We'll mosey along toward the river. Kinder take it easy an' drift the herd down slow so as to let the cattle put on flesh.

Translations

Usage notes

• Associated especially with the dialect of the Old West.

Anagrams

• Moyes, Moyse

English

Etymology

From Middle English straglen, of uncertain origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?st?æ?l?/
• Rhymes: -æ??l
• Hyphenation: strag?gle

Verb

straggle (third-person singular simple present straggles, present participle straggling, simple past and past participle straggled)

1. To stray from the road, course or line of march.

   He straggled away from the crowd and went off on his own.

2. To wander about; ramble.
3. To spread at irregular intervals.
4. To escape or stretch beyond proper limits, as the branches of a plant; to spread widely apart; to shoot too far or widely in growth.

   • Trim off the small, superfluous branches on each side of the hedge that straggle too far out.

5. To be dispersed or separated; to occur at intervals.
   • They came between Scylla and Charybdis and the straggling rocks.

Derived terms

• (noun) straggler
• (adverb) stragglingly

Translations

Noun

straggle (plural straggles)

1. An irregular, spread-out group.
2. An outlier; something that has strayed beyond the normal limits.
   • 1858 Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia

     Nevertheless there is a straggle of pungent sense in it, — like the outskirts of lightning, seen in that dismally wet weather, which the Royal Party had.