meander vs stray

meander

noun
  • A tortuous or winding journey. 

  • One of a series of regular sinuous curves, bends, loops, turns, or windings in the channel of a river, stream, or other watercourse 

  • Perplexity. 

  • One of the turns of a winding, crooked, or involved course. 

  • Synonym of Greek key, a decorative border; fretwork. 

  • A self-avoiding closed curve which intersects a line a number of times. 

verb
  • To wind or turn in a course or passage; to be intricate. 

  • To wind, turn, or twist; to make flexuous. 

stray

noun
  • An act of wandering off or going astray. 

  • 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. 

  • One who is lost, literally or figuratively. 

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 meander and stray occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )