vagus

Borrowing from Latin vagus (“wandering, rambling, strolling”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈveɪ.ɡəs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪɡəs

vagus (plural vagi)

1. (Roman Catholicism) A homeless person or vagrant.
   • 1922, “Domicile”, in Charles George Herbermann, Edward A. Pace, editors, The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church, volume 17, page 270:

     Though not referred in the Code as a domicile of origin, a child's place of origin is fixed by the place where his father had his domicile or, in defect of domicile, his quasi-domicile when the child was born, or where the mother had hers if the child was illegitimate or posthumous; if the parents were vagi it is the place where the child was born; if the child was a foundling the place where it was discovered.

2. (neuroanatomy) Ellipsis of vagus nerve.

• nervus vagus
• vague

< Latin vagus

• IPA^(key): /ˈʋɑɡus/, [ˈʋɑ̝ɡus̠]
• Rhymes: -ɑɡus
• Syllabification^(key): va‧gus
• Hyphenation^(key): va‧gus

vagus

1. (medicine, in compounds) vagus, vagus nerve

Uncertain. De Vaan suggests from Proto-Italic *wagos, from Proto-Indo-European *Hwogos, and compares this form to Old Norse vakka (“to totter”), Old High German wankon (“to totter”), winkan (“to waver, stagger”), Old English wincian (“to nod”).^[1] Compare also with Lithuanian võgti (“to steal”), Ancient Greek ὄχος (ókhos), Old English waġian, English wag, and English vag (the verb).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈwa.ɡʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈvaː.ɡus]

vagus (feminine vaga, neuter vagum); first/second-declension adjective

1. (literal) wandering, rambling, strolling, roving, roaming, unfixed, unsettled, vagrant

   Synonyms: errābundus, vagābundus

   vagus animis ― gone insane, gone mad

2. (figuratively) wandering, wavering, unsteady, inconstant, doubtful, uncertain, vague
3. undecided, fickle

   Synonyms: dubius, suspensus, incertus, anceps

   Antonyms: indubius, prōmptus, fixus

   vagus animi ― undecided mind

First/second-declension adjective.

• “vagus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• vagus in Enrico Olivetti, editor (2003-2025), Dizionario Latino, Olivetti Media Communication

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “vagus”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “vagus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "vagus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• vagus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • the planets: stellae errantes, vagae