ASTRAY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does astray mean? 

• ASTRAY (adverb)
  The adverb ASTRAY has 2 senses:

1. away from the right path or direction

2. far from the intended target

  Familiarity information: ASTRAY used as an adverb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ASTRAY (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Away from the right path or direction

Context example:

he was led astray

Sense 2

Meaning:

Far from the intended target

Synonyms:

astray; wide

Context example:

a bullet went astray and killed a bystander

 Context examples 

So far I could hardly have gone astray.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He will not be led astray; he will not be misled by others to his ruin.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I should have felt quite; astray doing the work if I had to write with a pen....

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

No doubt I see this, because I know it is so; but I am astray, and seem to see nothing.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

They have been leading her astray for years.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

It was a lie, and it had led him astray.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But how came it, Alleyne, that this woman, to whom all things are as crystal, and who hath not said one word which has not come to pass, was yet so led astray as to say that your thoughts turned to Twynham Castle even more than my own?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As he glanced from Jo to several other young people, attracted by the brilliancy of the philosophic pyrotechnics, he knit his brows and longed to speak, fearing that some inflammable young soul would be led astray by the rockets, to find when the display was over that they had only an empty stick or a scorched hand.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Now Emma could, indeed, enjoy Mr. Knightley's visits; now she could talk, and she could listen with true happiness, unchecked by that sense of injustice, of guilt, of something most painful, which had haunted her when remembering how disappointed a heart was near her, how much might at that moment, and at a little distance, be enduring by the feelings which she had led astray herself.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Reflection had given calmness to her judgment, and sobered her own opinion of Willoughby's deserts;—she wished, therefore, to declare only the simple truth, and lay open such facts as were really due to his character, without any embellishment of tenderness to lead the fancy astray.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)