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The Wandering History of Vagary
Let’s say, hypothetically, that two roads diverge in a yellow wood. And (also hypothetically) sorry that you cannot travel both, you opt for the grassy one less traveled by. What makes all the difference is the century in which this scenario plays out. In the 16th century, it could be said that you “made a vagary” by wandering off the beaten path. Today you might be said to lead a vagabond lifestyle. Vagabond can be traced to the Latin verb vagārī, meaning “to wander” or “to roam,” and it’s likely that vagary comes from that same source. Nowadays, however, the noun vagary is mostly used in its plural form to refer to changes that are difficult to predict or control; modern vagaries have less to do with wandering, and more to do with unpredictability, such as what one might encounter down a path that lies in leaves no step has trodden black.
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Examples of vagary in a Sentence
Amanda Mull, The Atlantic, 22 June 2023
Third, repeaters should prove capable of swapping this data between nodes in a network in a predictable way and not one too subject to the vagaries of chance.
—IEEE Spectrum, 13 June 2023
Getty Images Often at the mercy of the dollar, emerging countries are looking to insulate themselves from the vagaries of U.S. Federal Reserve policy by shifting to gold—and away from the greenback.
—Bychristiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 31 May 2023
As sanitized as the experience could have been, the vagaries of the natural world meant wild cards could, and did, emerge at the drop of a hat.
—Basem Wasef, Robb Report, 28 Apr. 2023
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Cite this Entry
“Vagary.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vagary. Accessed 29 Nov. 2024.
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vagary
noun
və-ˈge(ə)r-ē
-ˈga(ə)r-
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