vagitate

Meanings

1. To wander or move at random.

1. To wail, mewl (as an infant).

Etymology

Attested earliest as a ghost word in the 1928 volume of the New English Dictionary On Historical Principles (NED). Some later uses may have been based (directly or indirectly) on this entry. The editors of the NED interpreted it as a borrowing from Latin vagitō, vagitāre, an obscure medieval verb Others read here "per Hispaniam e palatio vagitant". built on the root of Classical Latin vagor, vagārī (“to ramble, stroll about”), from vagus (“wandering”).