astray

Etymology

From Middle English astraien or by apheresis straien, from Old French estraier (“to stray”), from late Medieval Latin extravagari (“to wander beyond”), from Latin extra (“beyond”) + vagārī (“to wander, stray”).

adv

1. In a wrong or unknown and wrongly-motivated direction.
   Go, set the storm-winds free, / And sink their ships or scatter them astray, / And strew their corpses forth, to weltering waves a prey. 1907, Virgil, “1.X”, in Edward Fairfax Taylor, transl., The Æneid of Virgil, London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.