irregular vs stray

irregular

noun
  • One who does not regularly attend a venue. 

  • A soldier who is not a member of an official military force and who may not use regular army tactics. 

adj
  • without symmetry, regularity, or uniformity 

  • rough 

  • not regular; having sides that are not equal or angles that are not equal 

  • whose faces are not all regular polygons (or are not equally inclined to each other) 

  • nonstandard; not conforming to rules or expectations 

  • not following the regular or expected patterns of inflection in a given language 

stray

noun
  • One who is lost, literally or figuratively. 

  • An area of common land for use by domestic animals generally. 

  • Any domestic animal that has no enclosure nor proper place and company, but that instead wanders at large or is lost; an estray. 

  • An instance of atmospheric interference. 

  • An act of wandering off or going astray. 

verb
  • To wander from company or outside proper limits; to rove or roam at large; to go astray. 

  • To wander from the path of duty or rectitude; to err. 

  • To cause to stray; lead astray. 

  • To wander, as from a direct course; to deviate, or go out of the way. 

adj
  • Having gone astray; strayed; wandering 

  • In the wrong place; misplaced. 

How often have the words irregular and stray occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )