nomad

Etymology

From Middle French nomade, from Latin Nomas (“wandering shepherd”), from Ancient Greek νομάς (nomás, “roaming, wandering, esp. to find pasture”), from Ancient Greek νομός (nomós, “pasture”). Compare Numidia.

noun

1. (anthropology) A member of a society or class who herd animals from pasture to pasture with no fixed home.
   The life of the people called the Nomads or Grazyers... 1587, Philippe de Mornay, translated by Philip Sidney et al., A Woorke Concerning the Trewnesse of the Christian Religion, viii, p. 113
   Energy has seldom been found where we need it when we want it. Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal. 2013 August, Henry Petroski, “Geothermal Energy”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4
2. (figurative) Synonym of wanderer: an itinerant person.
3. (figurative) A person who changes residence frequently.
   Once again Judy was a nomad, moving to yet again another destination. 2010, J. Knight, Unloved, page 58
   I made my exit down I-75, heading south. After a 40-year odyssey as a media nomad, I will be closing the circle in a place where my life had never been better. 2014, Dan Lovett, Anybody Seen Dan Lovett?: Memoirs of a media nomad, page 10
   Poise is the posture of the nomad, moving while always at home. 2016, Daniel Coffeen, Reading the Way of Things: Towards a New Technology of Making Sense
4. (figurative, sports) A player who changes teams frequently.
   With the recruitment of South Australian football nomad, and eventual legend of the game, Phil Matson, Subiaco would improve considerably in 1912. 2008, John Devaney, Full Points Footy's WA Football Companion, page 282
   Unlike players who were often traded, baseball nomads who carried a hobo's bindle rather than a bat on their shoulders, Musial stayed put in St. Louis. 2014, Wayne Stewart, Stan the Man: The Life and Times of Stan Musial, page 49
   Between 1996 and 2003, Lewis was a baseball nomad. At various times he signed contracts with San Diego, Detroit, Oakland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, the New York Mets, Cleveland, and the Chicago Cubs. 2015, Pete Cava, Indiana-Born Major League Baseball Players

adj

1. Synonym of nomadic.